Mexico’s Congress this week approved a law for the protection of human rights workers and journalists. The law requires that journalists and media outlets facing attacks because of their work should be offered protection.

The law was unanimously approved, perhaps as a result of the news that on 27 April, two days before the vote, journalist Regina Hernandez was found beaten and strangled in her home in the southern state of Veracruz.

In March, the murder of journalists was made a federal crime. State and municipal authorities are often suspected of being susceptible to pressure from organised crime groups or corrupt local officials.  Most of the murders of journalists occur in the interior of Mexico, very often on the US border, where intense drug cartel wars have made the region one of the most dangerous in the world for reporters.