MEXICO CITY —
Journalist Lourdes Maldonado López stood earlier than the Mexican president at a televised information convention and pleaded for assist.
“I worry for my life,” she advised President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that morning in Mexico Metropolis in 2019, explaining that she was locked in an acrimonious labor dispute with Jaime Bonilla Valdez, then a candidate for governor of Baja California state and the proprietor of a media firm that had as soon as employed Maldonado.
López Obrador stated he would assign an aide to comply with up with Maldonado, after which moved on. Maldonado returned to Tijuana, the place she lived, and resumed her life reporting on present occasions as an impartial journalist.
On Sunday evening, Maldonado was shot useless in her automotive outdoors her house, police stated. She was the second distinguished Tijuana journalist killed in lower than every week.
Officers say investigations into each killings are underway and the motives are usually not but identified. However the violence has shaken Mexico’s journalists, who additionally misplaced a 3rd colleague, reporter José Luis Gamboa, in a deadly stabbing in Veracruz state this month.
For years, Mexico has been one of many deadliest international locations on the planet to be a journalist. And for years, in impassioned speeches and avenue protests, media staff have begged authorities to do extra to guard them.
Article 19, a nonprofit that advocates for media freedom in Mexico, stated in a assertion that Maldonado “had been the sufferer of earlier assaults for her work” and had been enrolled in a state safety program for journalists since final 12 months.
Journalists in such applications are speculated to be granted bodyguards and panic buttons and in some circumstances given entry to secure homes. However human rights organizations have lengthy complained that the applications are underfunded and sometimes fail of their mission, with a number of journalists enrolled in safety applications killed in recent times.
Maldonado had labored for years as a journalist for a Tijuana affiliate of the published big Televisa. Her dispute with Bonilla dates again a couple of decade to when she was working for hismedia firm, PSN. The distinguished businessman served as Baja California governor from 2019 to 2021 and is a member of López Obrador’s ruling Morena social gathering.
Maldonado, who alleged she had been wrongly fired by Bonilla’s firm, had sued for fee of greater than $20,000 in again wages.
In response to Zeta, a Tijuana information journal, Maldonado scored a win within the case final week, with the media firm ordered to pay her restitution.
López Obrador responded to Maldonado’s dying at his day by day information convention Monday, calling it “very unlucky” and cautioning that it was too early to say whether or not the killing was related to the labor dispute.
When a reporter requested him what must shift in order that Mexican journalists can perform their work safely, the president steered, as he typically does, that the answer to Mexico’s relentless violence will not be particular coverage modifications or new safety methods however to make the nation extra ethical.
He blamed the “neoliberal” insurance policies of his predecessors for leaving him a rustic plagued with “corruption, inequality and violence.”
“You ask me: ‘When is that this going to finish?’” he stated, referring to violence towards journalists. “Once we all transfer ahead to purify public life in order that materialism doesn’t dominate, so ambition, ego and hate are put aside.”
The president’s response sparked outrage amongst press freedom advocates.
“With out significant motion, his phrases ring deafeningly hole as Mexico mourns the dying of one other murdered journalist at present,” tweeted Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico consultant of the nonprofit Committee to Shield Journalists.
A community of the nation’s journalists stated it was organizing nationwide protests Tuesday in 27 cities.
Maldonado’s killing got here as Tijuana’s close-knit press corps was nonetheless mourning the dying of crime photographer Margarito Martínez, who was shot outdoors his house Jan. 17. The 49-year-old father had labored for practically 20 years for among the nation’s most distinguished information shops.
Maldonado had spoken at a vigil for him on Friday evening.
Martínez, who took images of crime scenes for Zeta and different publications, had lately had a public battle with an impartial crime blogger. On Wednesday, police arrested the blogger on drug possession prices. He has not been charged in Martínez’s dying.
Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda stated Monday that she was appointing a particular prosecutor to analyze the deaths of Martínez and Maldonado. “Aggressions towards the press are an aggression towards the voice of each citizen,” stated Ávila, who can be a member of the president’s Morena social gathering.
Within the aftermath of the killings, Tijuana journalists sought to console each other. Some stated they have been afraid to proceed in such a harmful line of labor.
Jorge Nieto, a longtime Tijuana journalist who resides in Australia, posted on Fb that the neighborhood had hit a breaking level.
“The physique of photojournalist Margarito Martínez continues to be heat, and two days after his burial we now need to make room in our hearts to mourn one other of our colleagues,” he stated.
Cecilia Sánchez in The Instances’ Mexico Metropolis bureau contributed to this report.
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