Authorities found the murdered and dismembered body of a Mexican journalist who disappeared in 2007.Police claimed that reporter Rodolfo Rincon Taracena’s investigative articles on “small-scale drug-dealing” led to his being killed and dissolved in acid by drug gangs. Though his remains were unable to be indentified through DNA samples police were able to recognize Taracena via the confessions from his suspected abductors.
Taracena became the third journalist to be killed this year in Mexico, a nation that Reporters Without Borders deemed as “the western hemisphere country where press freedom is most endangered.” A recently released report painted a dark picture of the dangers of being a journalist in Mexico:
In its annual report on the state of freedom of expression in Mexico, the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) documented aggressions against 183 journalists and 19 media organizations for reasons connected to their work. Thirteen media workers were killed (in 2009)…Image- Committee to Protect Journalists (“Reporter Armando Rodriguez was killed outside his home in Ciudad Juarez in 2008.”)
The 2009 figures, which include 140 incidents involving 183 people, represent an increase of 13 cases (10.23%), over 2008, when 127 incidents were reported.
“For CEPET, these figures should awaken the concern of all society and of the authorities in particular, as the majority of the cases have not been resolved,” CEPET says. “And even worse, in many of them, institutions of the State—police, investigators, members of the military, and civilian employees—are pointed out as being responsible for the aggressions.”
Online Sources- CNN, AHN, Reporters Without Borders, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Center for Journalism and Public Ethics
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