Another Mexican journalist murdered, fifth in one month

Another journalist in Mexico, Herbert Lopez, has been murdered by gunmen who fatally shot him at his recording studio at Salina Cruz, in Oaxaca State of the country on Thursday.

The murder of Lopez, an independent journalist who ran an online news platform, NoticiasWeb, brings to five such killings in one month, in what advocates have described as a campaign of terror against the media.

According to a police report on Friday, Lopez was involved in an intensive investigation into drugs and organized crime at the time of his death.

Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Lopez’s murder makes the first six weeks of 2022 “the deadliest for the Mexican press in over a decade”.

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“Five journalists were murdered, two survived an attack, a number of others reported death threats,” Hootsen wrote on Twitter on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Oaxaca attorney general has confirmed that two people have been arrested in connection with Lopez’s killing, though the investigation was still ongoing.

According to Rodolfo Canseco Gutierrez, a friend of the victim and director of the online news site RCP Noticias, a vehicle carrying two men pulled up in front of Lopez’s office on Thursday evening, and one man got out, walked into the office and shot Lopez at close range.

Gutierrez added that Lopez covered crime and police news and his murder may be connected to a crime investigation he was involved in.

He said while Lopez had never told him about receiving threats, he did not doubt the killing was connected to his friend’s work.

According to a media advocacy group, Article 19, in 2021 alone, seven Mexican journalists killed while the first two months of 2022 have proven particularly deadly for media workers in the country.

“In early January, Jose Luis Gamboa Arenas, the director of the news site, Inforegio in Veracruz, was fatally stabbed.

“Weeks later, freelance photographer, Margarito Martinez, was murdered by gunmen in the border city of Tijuana.

“Less than a week later, reporter Lourdes Maldonado Lopez, was fatally shot in the same city.

“On January 31, videographer Robert Toledo was fatally shot while preparing for an interview in Michoacan state.

“At least three of those killed this year had been enrolled or in contact with a $23m-a-year federal programme to protect journalists and rights defenders,” the group said.

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