UN asks Mexico to reinforce the protection of journalists after another murder

The HIM-HER-IT called this monday at Mexican authorities to strengthen the protection of journalists in response to the murder this Sunday of Lourdes Maldonado in Tijuana, a city on the border with the United States, in what was the third violent death of media professionals so far this year.

In his daily press conference, spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that the United Nations condemns the murder and all attacks against journalists, while conveying his condolences to Maldonado’s family, friends and colleagues.

“We call on the Mexican authorities to reinforce the protection of journalists and in particular to take more measures to prevent new attacks against them, which includes responding to threats and insults against them,” Dujarric said.

Maldonado, shot on Sunday outside her home, was included in Baja California’s Protection for Journalists program, but the surveillance provided was not permanent.

His entry into said program was due to fear of a legal problem he had with former Governor Jaime Bonilla, of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena, left).

Maldonado attended the daily conference of the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in Mexico City in March 2019, where he denounced that his life was in danger in the middle of the lawsuit with Bonilla, then a licensed senator.

Last Thursday, the communicator had made public her victory over the labor lawsuit filed against the company Primer Sistema de Noticias (PSN) owned by former Governor Bonilla.

She is the second journalist murdered in Tijuana in 2022, after photojournalist Margarito Martínez, who was shot at on January 17 as he was getting into his vehicle at his home in the Camino Verde neighborhood.

In addition, on January 10, journalist José Luis Gamboa Arenas, director of the digital media Inforegio, where he disseminated problems of insecurity and politics, was murdered in Veracruz, a state in eastern Mexico.

According to the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), at least seven journalists were murdered in Mexico in 2021, making it “the deadliest in the world for the press.”

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