A Mexican journalist who was also a former local official was shot dead Tuesday in the country’s central Puebla region, authorities said.
The 69-year-old Marco Aurelio Ramirez, was killed in broad daylight as he left his home in the town of Tehuacan.
He had worked for decades for several different media outlets.
An investigation into the crime was opened, the prosecutor’s office said.
The Mexican branch of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that Ramirez, working as a civil servant, had contributed to the arrest of suspected criminals.
‘RSF calls for a swift and transparent investigation,’ the non-governmental media rights group said, to determine ‘whether the homicide was related to his work as a municipal official or to his practice of journalism.’
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Africa Today News, New York reports that no fewer than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, according to RSF. Most of the murders have gone unpunished.
More journalists were killed in 2022 in Mexico than in any other year. The murders of Lourdes Maldonado Lopez and Margarito Martínez last January were the latest in a string of killings that have largely gone unsolved.
As rights groups continue to call for government action, we are revisiting our episode with Mexican journalists about how safe they feel while covering the news there, why so many are being killed and what is being done to protect them.
The President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has rejected calls for the United States military to intervene to stem drug cartel violence in Mexico, stressing that such a move would violate the country’s sovereignty.
During a news conference on Thursday, Lopez Obrador said his government was ‘not going to permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory, much less than a government’s armed forces intervene’.