26 Jun 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
Mexican crime journalist Stephania Cardoso, who went missing with her two-year-old son on 8 June, is understood to be under the protection of the federal government. Cardoso, a reporter with the Zócalo Saltillo newspaper in the state of Coahuila, spoke to Radio Fórmula on 15 June, confirming she and her son were alive and well but gave no further details of her whereabouts or circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Colleagues last saw Cardoso and her son on 7 June during a Freedom of Expression Day celebration.
15 Jun 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
The body of Mexican journalist Víctor Manuel Báez Chino was found yesterday near the main square in Xalapa, capital of Veracruz state, making him the fourth journalist to be killed in Veracruz in the past two months. A state spokeswoman has said officials received reports that three armed men abducted Báez on Wednesday night, she also indicated that an organised crime cartel was responsible. Báez covered the crime beat in the state capital.
12 Jun 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A Mexican reporter has gone missing from her home in the state of Coahuila, along with her two-year-old son. Hypathia Stephanía Rodríguez Cardoso, crime reporter for Zócalo Saltillo newspaper, disappeared on Friday (8 June) after attending an event celebrating Freedom of Expression day. The journalist contacted colleagues around 2 AM Friday to tell them she had returned home safely, but did not turn up for work later that morning. According to relatives, her house had been ransacked. The disappearance comes less than three weeks after a crime journalist in Sonora, Marco Antonio Ávila García, was kidnapped and later found tortured and killed.
08 Jun 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A constitutional amendment was given final approval in Mexico yesterday [7 June] making attacks on the press a federal offence in Mexico. The amendment, passed by 16 state legislatures, allows federal authorities to investigate and punish crimes against journalists, persons or installations when the right to information or the right to expression is affected. Press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists heralded the “landmark legislation”, with the groups’s senior programme coordinator for the Americas, Carlos Lauría, deeming it a “first step to stop impunity in the killings of Mexican journalists.”
