The latest story of Don Rober, the reporter murdered in Michoacán

Two days before he died, Roberto Toledo was eating mixiotes and drinking beers with his friend and colleague Joel Vera.

It was Saturday and the weather was fine.

They had known each other for more than a decade and worked together in the law firm that Vera ran.

Between case and case, they also reported through a local media the events that happened in his city, Zitácuaro, in the State of Michoacán, 155 kilometers from Mexico City.

Life had punished his 55 years and it seemed that he was over 60. Toledo had gray hair and a thin mustache that framed a slightly toothless smile when he was careless.

"He was like my dad," says Vera.

After the mixiotes, Vera remembers that they stayed smoking and talking like they hadn't done for a long time.

Of their concerns, of the family, of the two chihuahuas from Toledo and of the recent threats they had received in

the news portal where they worked, for denouncing the corruption of power in the municipality.

"We talk about being eternal apprentices of life," recalls the lawyer.

On Monday, Don Rober, as his friends called him, was shot eight times outside his work.

It was one o'clock in the afternoon under a scorching sun.

Medical services could not do anything for him.

The three young gunmen — almost teenagers — who ended his life fled on two motorcycles.

"They wanted to kill me and whoever got in their way," says Vera, deputy director of the outlet.

The shots can still be seen in the armored doors of the building.

"That saved us, otherwise the dead would be three," she says.

The lawyer has no doubt that the attack had to do with the journalistic work that he and his colleagues do.

The independent media is in the same offices as the legal office.

January was the most violent month against the press in Mexico in the last decade.

The first month of the year began stained red with the murder of Margarito Martínez, Lourdes Maldonado and José Luis Gamboa, in Tijuana and Veracruz.

Don Rober was fourth on the list.

Along with the body, two cards supposedly written by an organized crime group were found, according to official sources.

The messages allude to a possible settling of accounts with the lawyer for working for an antagonistic group.

Joel Vera categorically denies this version.

"They want to create a smoke screen of the real mobile and they say it was because I was dealing with drug trafficking cases, but it is not true, I do not deal with heavy cases like that," he says.

Armando Linares, director of the outlet, points out that the threats against the outlet

they began more than a year ago and became more violent five days before the murder.

On Monday, January 31, Roberto Toledo was murdered in the garage of the offices where he worked.

A law firm that also served to house the media outlet 'Monitor Michoacán'. Special Photographer (CUARTOSCURO)

“We already had a complaint in the State Prosecutor's Office for attacks on freedom of expression.

The director received threats that the Public Prosecutor's Office and the municipal government should no longer be criticized.

We had affected private interests such as those of the construction companies that diverted billions of pesos [in City Hall works],” Vera points out.

Toledo himself published an article about it on November 23 of last year, entitled:

, in which he points out the alleged corruption in public works financed by the municipal presidency.

"Exhibiting corruption by corrupt governments, corrupt officials and politicians today led to the death of one of our colleagues," Linares denounced that fateful Monday.

The presidential spokesman, Jesús Ramírez, condemned the murder and assured that the Government will not allow impunity in the case.

From the Executive, only condolences arrive, but to date, there is no strategy to curb violence against journalists in the country.

After several hours in which the national and international press echoed the news, Ramírez published another tweet in which he denied that Toledo was a journalist, but rather that he worked as an "assistant to a law firm", the same version that argue the mayor of the city, Juan Antonio Ixtláhuac, and the State Prosecutor's Office.

The reaction has angered a guild that is fed up with covering up the murder of its fellow members.

The impunity and lack of protection of informants weigh down a profession marked by violence and job insecurity.

Not only that.

In the most violent corners of Mexico, like Michoacán, the courage to report does not come from university degrees.

Where journalists with titles often do not arrive, the only ones who take to the streets are people like

r.

“Despite not having studies, he was skilled.

I always told him: I admire you because without being a professional, you learned journalism and defend yourself from authority by listening to us and seeing us work”, recalls the excited friend of him.

Meanwhile, the López Obrador government continues to be targeted for its tense relationship with the press.

The rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged the Government to recognize the crisis of violence that journalism is going through in Mexico and to stop attacking journalists through the section of its press conference

who of the

Roberto Toledo was versatile.

The same covered a demonstration that was in charge of the paperwork of the office.

He always carried his cell phone in his shirt pocket, ready to take photos or record video.

The last piece of news he was working on had to do with the alleged illicit enrichment of the authorities in the Zitácuaro House for the Elderly.

"There he made me laugh because he went to the place and pretended to be a 70-year-old man, that Rober," says Vera.

Roberto Toledo (right), journalist murdered in Michoacán, together with lawyer Joel Vera.

For his work he received about 5,000 pesos a month (about 300 dollars).

"He was in charge of collecting data and information, reporting, taking photos and when there were no people, he helped in the District XIII program that we broadcast on Facebook," he explains.

The members of

seven people in total had contacted the Ministry of the Interior to alert them to the risk they were in. "We are not armed, our only defense is a pen," Linares said in a video. “The outlet had reported attacks, and the authorities have to take journalistic work as a line of investigation,” says Juan Vázquez, of Article 19, an organization that defends freedom of expression. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has counted from 1992 to 2021 the murder of 138 informants in Mexico. Article 19 computes even higher figures: 145 since 2000.

The Michoacan Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation to clarify the crime following the protocol of crimes against journalists.

So far only the motorcycles on which the criminals fled have been found, but there are no detainees.

Toledo was buried two days later in his town.

He had five children.

"We are going to continue pointing out corruptions and corrupt politicians even if our lives depend on it (...) Damn those [who] attempted against the life of an innocent person," said a devastated Linares.

A week after the murder, in

they continue to mourn their partner.

"Freedom of expression is a fundamental right and a pillar for the democracy of a people," says Joel Vera.

He will never forget the last moments of Don Rober

just before the assassins knocked on the door.

“He never refused anyone a greeting.

He had a gift for making people like him.”

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