Rest stops for migrants operated by Roman Catholic priests across Mexico are coming under attack from top Church officials after centre directors criticised Mexican government policies on Central American migrants.
The most recent case is that of Father Alejandro Solalinde, the Mexican priest who ran Hermanos en el Camino (Brothers in the Road), a rest stop in the state of Oaxaca. Solalinde, who recently returned from two months of forced exile after receiving death threats from organised crime groups, was ordered by the Bishop of Tehuantepec, Oscar Armando Campos, to stop his work with migrants. Solalinde said the Bishop objected to his public statements in the media in support of migrants who face harassment from not only organised crime groups, but also local government and police officials. Local residents have also criticised the centres, whose rest stops draw large groups of the mostly male Central-American migrants. A political backlash has forced Bishop Armando Campos to clarify that he never told Solalinde to leave the centre.
Another journalist from the Mexican state of Veracruz was found murdered on 14 June.
Victor Baez, the Veracruz state crime reporter for the national Milenio newspaper, had been kidnapped on Wednesday outside the offices of website Reporteros Policiacos, where he also worked as an editor. According to police in Veracruz, the drug cartel Zetas claimed responsibility for the murder. Police are now providing security to other staff at the website.
Baez’s body was dumped in downtown Xalapa, a city in the southern state of Veracruz, where seven journalists and one former journalist have been killed in the last six months.
The authorities claim they are following tips linking the murders to local government officials but there have not been arrests over any of the homicides.
The most recent murder comes on the heels of the disappearance of another reporter in the northern state of Coahuila. Stephania Cardoso, 28, a crime reporter for the Saltillo-based daily Zocalo, was reported missing on Friday last week together with her young son. Cardoso was last seen at a party given the previous day in celebration of Mexico’s national freedom of expression day. This week, Cardoso called a national television programme and said she was in hiding fearing for her life. No further information on her whereabouts has been released.
Both the murder and disappearance come within days of the approval by Mexico of landmark legislation that federalises crimes against freedom of expression. The new legislation would allow federal authorities to investigative these crimes over state authorities. Federal procedural and penal codes changes are still pending to make the new law operational.
The bodies of three photographers from the city of Veracruz — Gabriel Huge, Gabriel Luna Varela, Guillermo Rodriguez— were found dismembered and dumped in local waterway as Mexicans celebrated World Press Freedom Day yesterday. The bodies showed signs of torture.
The Attorney General’s Office for the State of Veracruz reported that both Huge and Varela, who were freelance photographers, had been reported missing by their families yesterday. According to Laura Angelina Borbolla Moreno, Special Attorney General for crimes against freedom of expression, both Huge and Varela were among a list of eight journalists who had been identified as under threat from organised crime in Veracruz.
Just last weekend, neighbours discovered the body of Regina Martinez, a reporter for the political weekly magazine Proceso, in the Veracruz city of Xalapa. Martinez had been killed with heavy blows and strangulation. Days after her murder, the Mexican Congress passed a law protecting human rights workers and journalists.
An ongoing battle between the Zetas drug cartel and members of the Chapo Guzman Sinaloa Cartel has contributed to a spiral of violence and corruption: with the last three murders, eight reporters have been killed in the southern state of Veracruz since December 2010.
Another journalist was killed this weekend in the southern Mexican state of Veracruz. The body of Regina Martinez, a reporter for the political weekly magazine Proceso was found in the bathroom of her home in the city of Xalapa with signs of heavy blows and strangulation.
Martinez is the fifth journalist in Veracruz to be slain in the past 18 months, an ongoing battle between the Zetas drug cartel and members of the Chapo Guzman Sinaloa Cartel has contributed to a spiral of violence and corruption. Other journalists killed in the last year include Noel Lopez Olguin de Noticias de Acayucan, Miguel Angel Lopez, Misael Lopez Solana and Yolanda Ordaz of the newspaper Notiver. No one has been convicted or arrested in these cases.
Martinez was a Procesco reporter for more than a decade and she frequently wrote about drug trafficking.
The last story she filed for the magazine was about the arrest of nine police officers in the municipality of Tres Valle for alleged ties to organised crime. Martinez is the first Proceso reporter to be killed since the magazine was founded 36 years ago. People took to social networking sites to express their outrage over the murder and demand answers.
The latest murder will undoubtedly trigger a chilling effect, which will mean even less reporting on drug related violence. In parts of Mexico where organised crime has pushed journalists into silence, reporters and citizens have used social media networks to keep the public informed about violence and corruption.
This won’t happen in Veracruz, the state sent Twitter users Gilberto Martínez Vera and María de Jesús Bravo Pagola to prison on terrorism charges after they tweeted warnings about local drug gang violence. In a recent interview, the now released Martinez Vera described how his 21 days in prison last August destroyed his life. The mathematics professor now only tweets about religion out of fear of facing trouble once more. Both Martínez Vera and Bravo Pagola faced 30 years in prison if convicted on terrorism charges, they were released after an international outcry.
