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Journalist Lourdes Maldonado murdered, the second deadly crime against the press in Tijuana in a week

2022-01-24T19:57:25.664Z


The reporter had warned three years ago that she feared for her life at a López Obrador press conference. The president has said this Monday that “it is not responsible to advance any trial”


"I come here to ask for support and labor justice, because I even fear for my life." The journalist Lourdes Maldonado launched this warning message in front of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It was three years ago in one of his first morning conferences at the National Palace. This Sunday, his body appeared in Tijuana, State of Baja California, inside a car with several bullet wounds in the face. It is the second journalist murdered in a week in the border city and the third in the country since the beginning of the year, prolonging the murderous path against informants in Mexico, the deadliest country in the world for the press.

Around 6:20 p.m., the residents of the Las Villas subdivision heard shots, according to information from the weekly

Zeta

, the reference medium in the area.

The first witnesses found the body in the car, a red sedan, with the engine running and the driver's side window shattered by bullet holes.

Maldonado was at the door of his house.

A pattern similar to the murder of Margarito Esquivel six days ago.

Last Monday, at 12:45, the photographer Margarito Esquivel left his house in Tijuana, in the Sánchez Taboada neighborhood.

There he was gunned down.

The 49-year-old photojournalist specialized in police events and news.

He worked for Grupo Cadena and the weekly Zeta, and also collaborated with international media such as the BBC.

Maldonado, who had been a reporter for Televisa, had spent years in a legal lawsuit against a local television station owned by the former governor of the State, Jaime Bonilla, from Moreno, for unjustified dismissal.

The journalist referred directly to the case during her complaint to President López Obrador.

"I can do nothing or little against that character," he said then.

An aerial image of the place where Lourdes Maldonado was murdered in Tijuana. GUILLERMO ARIAS (AFP)

López Obrador referred this Monday in the morning conference to the murder of the journalist: "You cannot automatically link a labor-type lawsuit to a crime, it is not responsible to advance any trial." The president has assured that his government maintained "communication with her because it was not a matter of threats, of violence." "My commitment is that there is no impunity, that those responsible are found," he said. López Obrador has pointed to an "inherited" violence, "a process of progressive degradation" that began "20 or 30 years ago."

Maldonado, according to local media reports, had been registered with the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists and Human Rights Defenders since last year. It is a spring of prevention and help for communicators, in this case of a state nature, which is also in the crosshairs of criticism. The measure has not prevented the numbers of violence against informers from getting worse in the country. In 2021, nine reporters died violently. This year, without even finishing the first month, there are already three victims.

Mexico is the deadliest country in the world for the press, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Jan-Albert Hootsen, a CPJ representative, explained a few days ago to this newspaper that Mexico is the only nation where the levels of lethal violence against journalists have not changed, but rather remain the same with the different governments: "Violence is a constant . And the conclusion after three years of the López Obrador government is that not only has he not been able to solve the dozens of murders of journalists, defenders and activists, but he has done very little to prevent them.”

The organization, which has been keeping a global count of these attacks since 1992, registered 138 murders in Mexico until the end of 2021.

Article 19, a Mexican organization that defends freedom of expression, computes even higher figures: 145 since 2000.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-01-24

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