The journalist of the newspaper ‘El Veraz’, Yessenia Mollinedo, and the photojournalist, Johana García, bring to 11 the number of deaths accumulated by the Mexican press this year.
The Mexican press is in permanent mourning this year. It has not finished defeating the first blow and receives two more. Unions and groups of journalists had called for a mobilization last Monday in twenty cities of the country to protest against the murder, on May 4 in Sinaloa, of journalist Luis Enrique Ramírez, when they received the tragic news that two colleagues had just been shot in Veracruz. The protesters had to paint new signs to include the names of Yessenia Mollinedo and Johana García on the list of 11 journalists killed in Mexico so far this year.
The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection said on his Twitter account that he was making operational and investigative capabilities available to the entity’s governor and the state prosecutor’s office to collaborate in clarifying the facts.
“We will find the perpetrators of this crime, there will be justice and there will be no impunity,” said the official governor of Veracruz, Cuitláhuac García, on his social network account.
This year is particularly violent for the Mexican press, in just over four months, eleven journalists have already been murdered in different parts of the country: Margarito Martínez and Lourdes Maldonado, in Tijuana; Roberto Toledo and Armando Linares, in Michoacán; Heber López, in Oaxaca; Jorge Luis Camero, in Sonora; Juan Carlos Muñiz, in Zacatecas; Luis Enrique Ramirez, in Sinaloa; José Luis Gamboa, in Veracruz and, also in that state, Yessenia Mollinedo and Johana García.
According to figures from the organization “Article 19”, since Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) took power in Mexico, there have been nearly 2,000 attacks and 36 murders against the press, a significant increase compared to his predecessors in power. At the end of their six-year terms, former presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón had 47 and 48 journalists murdered; AMLO could surpass them in the coming months, even though he still has more than two years in office.
