Another journalist attacked in Mexico; 3 killed this month

Folks maintain candles throughout a protest towards the homicide of journalist Lourdes Maldonado and freelance photojournalist Margarito Martinez, which occurred in Tijuana throughout the span of per week, in Mexico Metropolis, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. Demonstrations had been held in additional than a dozen cities throughout Mexico to protest the killings of three journalists within the final two weeks. The third slain journalist is Jose Luis Gamboa.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — One other journalist was attacked Wednesday in Mexico, the place three have been killed up to now this month.

Jose Ignacio Santiago mentioned he narrowly escaped when a automobile carrying armed assailants tried to chop his automobile off on a rural freeway within the southern state of Oaxaca.

Santiago mentioned he was in a position to escape as a result of he was accompanied by two bodyguards assigned to him underneath a authorities program to guard journalists. Santiago had been assigned the guards after he was kidnapped by a gang in 2017.

The assault comes in the future after press teams held greater than a dozen demonstrations all through Mexico Tuesday to protest the killings of three journalists for the reason that begin of the 12 months.

Santiago mentioned the bodyguard driving him was in a position to outmaneuver the attackers, however the assailants opened fireplace after they noticed the journalist’s automobile escaping. Santiago, the director of an internet information website, was not injured.

He had been taping video in a distant Triqui Indigenous space, and which will have angered one of many teams battling for management of the area.

“I don’t suppose I've any issues in that space, however they could not have appreciated seeing information media within the space,” mentioned Santiago. “It's a Triqui space.”

Some 10,000 Triquis reside in distant, impoverished communities within the mountains of Oaxaca. Three Triqui teams are locked in a decades-long armed wrestle that has seen dozens of killings. In 2010, a Finnish human rights observer and a Mexican political activist had been shot to demise in the identical space.

Assaults on journalists have spiked this month.

Within the border metropolis of Tijuana, two journalists had been killed within the area of per week. On Jan. 17, crime photographer Margarito Martínez was gunned down exterior his dwelling. And on Jan. 23, reporter Lourdes Maldonado López was discovered shot to demise inside her automobile.

On Jan. 10, reporter José Luis Gamboa was killed within the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

Officers have acknowledged that greater than 90% of murders of journalists and rights defenders stay unresolved, regardless of a authorities system meant to guard them.

The New York-based Committee to Shield Journalists places the proportion at 95%, mentioned its Mexico consultant Jan-Albert Hootsen.

Laura Sanchez, a journalist from Baja California residing in Mexico Metropolis, ridiculed the federal government program that's supposed to guard journalists Tuesday. The federal government program typically offers journalists a button fob that may sound an emergency alarm, however some say it's ineffective.

“What they provide us is a damned panic button, and you understand what that button is? It's the variety of the municipal police supervisor who's corrupt and offered out,” Sanchez mentioned.

Mexico stays essentially the most harmful place within the Western Hemisphere for journalists. The federal government says 52 journalists or media employees have been slain in Mexico since December 2018.

It says seven of the 52 killed had been enrolled within the safety program.