Mexican journalist Jorge Armenta was murdered on Saturday in the north of the country, as well as a municipal police, bringing the number of journalists killed in Mexico to three since the beginning of the year, sources have learned. judicial.
The journalist, director of Medios Obson, an online media outlet, was the victim of an armed attack in Ciduad Obregon (north) in which a police officer was also killed and another injured, prosecutors said on Twitter local.
Third journalist killed in 2020
Jorge Armenta had received threats and benefited from a protection program for threatened persons, human rights defenders and journalists, said Balbina Flores, the Mexican representative of Journalists in Frontières, an NGO which counted three as number of journalists murdered since January in this country, one of the most violent on the planet.
In April, a missing journalist was found dead in Acapulco (southwest), and in late March, a reporter was killed in the eastern state of Veracruz. The journalist had denounced multiple death threats and attacks by local politicians.
"About 92% of journalists' killings go unpunished in this country"
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. More than a hundred of them have been murdered since 2000, including 10 in 2019, according to Reporters Without Borders.
"About 92% of journalists' killings go unpunished in this country," said Balbina Flores. Friday, the NGO had denounced "negligence" and "delays" in the legal process around the assassination in 2017 of Javier Valdez, Mexican journalist and collaborator of AFP.
Justice in drops
"The negligence of the authorities and the delays in the process raise fears that once again, those responsible for the crime will go unpunished," denounced in a statement the French organization for the defense of press freedom.
"Even if there has been some progress, justice has been done in drops," she added. The murder of the co-founder of the weekly Riodoce and collaborator of the daily La Jornada, hailed for his investigations into the drug trade, had sparked international outrage.
Javier Valdez was killed outside his office after investigations into the influence in his native region of drug trafficking networks like that of El Chapo (Joaquin Guzman), who is now serving a life sentence in the United States. United States.
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