Politics

Second journalist murdered in Mexico’s Tijuana in a week

Tijuana, Mexico, Jan 24 (EFE).- Unknown assailants have shot dead a female journalist in Tijuana of Mexico, becoming the second Mexican scribe murdered in a week in the city bordering California.

Lourdes Maldonado arrived at her house in the Santa Fe neighborhood in her car after 6.40 pm on Sunday, according to first police reports.

Her neighbors heard gunshots, and upon coming out of their houses, they found her wounded in the driver’s seat and called the police.

The municipal police were the first to arrive at the scene, followed by paramedics from the Red Cross, who declared Maldonado dead.

Members of the National Guard also arrived to reinforce security in the area.

Maldonado was registered in the state’s protection program for journalists, but the police surveillance was not round-the-clock.

Her admission to the program was due to a legal dispute with former Governor Jaime Bonilla of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Moreno) party.

At a daily conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City in March 2019, Maldonado had told him that she feared for her life due to a lawsuit she had filed against Bonilla, then a senator.

“I also come here to ask for support, help and labor justice as I even fear for my life because it is a lawsuit that I have (had) with him for six years,” she told the president.

On Thursday, Maldonado announced that she had won the lawsuit against Primer Sistema de Noticias, owned by Bonilla.

Maldonado is the third journalist to be murdered in Tijuana this year.

Photojournalist Margarito Martínez was shot dead on Jan. 17 while getting into his car outside his house in the Camino Verde neighborhood.

Journalist José Luis Gamboa Arenas, director of digital newspaper Inforegio, which reported on security issues and politics, was also killed in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz on Jan.10.

At least seven journalists were murdered in Mexico in 2021, making it the world’s deadliest country for the media, according to nonprofit Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Mexico ranks 143rd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index. EFE

cz/pd/ssk

Related Articles

Back to top button