Murder of Journalists in Mexico: "Historic High"

Mexico drug violence: 9 hanged, 14 decapitated in border city of Nuevo Laredo

National Public Radio (2107)

According to the New York-based nonprofit, six journalists were killed in Mexico this year, putting it just behind Iraq and Syria as the deadliest places in the world to work in the media.

Another reporter may be added to Mexico's murdered list for 2017. On Tuesday, Gumaro Pérez Aguilando was killed in the state of Veracruz. The 35-year-old crime reporter was gunned down while attending a Christmas party at his son's elementary school.

Pérez was registered in the state's journalist protection program. But Wednesday, state investigators said he was no longer a working journalist and had ties to organized crime. That drew an angry protest by the secretary of the state's Commission for the Attention and Protection of Journalists.

"A discussion of a person's character, with the intention to judge him and criminalize him, does not help those of us who desire justice for journalists who have been assassinated," said Jorge Morales Vázquez.

Read it all here.

Related reading: 50,000 Murdered in Mexico in Twelve Years; Three Journalists Found Dead in Veracruz; Mexico Fails to Protect Wornat and Monroy; Mexico Leads Latin America in Media Professional Murders; Zetas Dismember Female Journalist; Mexican Drug Lords Killing Journalists

Iranian Drug Smugglers Captured in Pakistan

QUETTA: The Frontier Corps recovered three foreigners kidnapped by a gang of drug traffickers and arrested eight Iranians who were holding them, after a raid on a house in Turbat on Saturday.

“Two Tanzanians and a Yemeni national had been detained by the Iranian nationals in the house in Overseas Colony,” an FC official said. An FC spokesman said the eight persons arrested by FC troops were Iranian nationals and initial investigation had revealed that they belonged to a gang involved in drug trafficking.

The spokesman also clarified that the border security guards from the neighboring country who had been kidnapped on Feb 6 were not among the Iranians arrested in Kech district.

Source: Pakistan Dawn

Uruguay Legalizes Marijuana

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica has signed a bill legalizing the sale and production of the drug despite global criticism. The UN has condemned the bill as a violation of international law, while Mujica claims it will undercut the illegal drugs trade.

Mujica’s secretary, Diego Canepa, told the Associated Press that the President had signed the bill into law on Monday night. Now the Uruguayan government has until April 9 – when the law comes into full effect – to finalize the regulations that will govern the sale and cultivation of marijuana.

As of today, the cultivation of up to six cannabis plants per family is now legal in Uruguay. As well as growing the drug, Uruguayans will also be able to purchase marijuana in pharmacies once they have registered in a nationwide database. There will be a cap on the amount of marijuana that can be bought every month which will initially be set at 40 grams.

President Mujica – who proposed the bill in the first place – has championed the legislation as a way to eliminate the illegal drugs trade in Uruguay. In this way, the market price for the drug will be set at a dollar a gram in an attempt to undercut the illegal market price of $1.40.

Read it all here.

Peru and other countries of South America may follow.

Matthew Shepard is not a gay martyr

If Matthew Shepard was killed strictly because of drugs by his sometime gay sex partner, what will that do to his martyr status in the gay community and in the larger world including at the United Nations?

Read it all here.

Notorious Hazing, Drug-dealing, Racist Fraternities

OnlineClasses.org

The first college fraternities in the United States appeared in the 1770s. The organizational structure of these early fraternities was inspired in part by Greek language for its easily coded lettering and connection to classical thought. Fraternities and sororities today include organizations for women, as well as black, Latino, and Asian students, and are meant to provide students with the opportunity to develop their personal, leadership, and community-based skills. The website of Dartmouth’s Sigma Alpha Epsion fraternity, for example, proclaims that "the true gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from goodwill … who thinks of the rights and feelings of others rather than his own." Unfortunately, this particular chapter of S.A.E. is the subject of a recent exposé that reveals a history of brutal hazing rituals that include pledges being asked to vomit on each other and swim in pools of excrement. While most Greek organizations offer real, lifelong benefits to their members and communities, a handful, like these sampled below, most certainly do not.

1. Alpha Delta Phi (Dartmouth College chapter):

   
   Dartmouth’s Alpha Delta Phi will, for better or for worse, be forever known as the fraternity that inspired the original college gross-out comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House. The film stars John Belushi as a hard-partying fraternity brother who, after finally being expelled from school for excessive partying and vandalism, moans the famous line, "Seven years of college down the drain!" The chapter continues to walk the thin line between touting its bad-boy reputation and promoting a more alumni-friendly veneer of civility.

2. Pi Kappa Alpha, Psi Upsilon, and Alpha Epsilon Pi (Columbia University chapters):

   
   Members of not one, not two, but — count ‘em — three different fraternities at Columbia University were busted for dealing drugs, including cocaine and LSD, as a result of Operation Ivy League, a four-year undercover operation by New York’s finest. Five students were ultimately charged and Columbia to its credit put all three of the fraternities on probation and kicked them out of their university-owned brownstones.

3. Delta Kappa Epsilon (Yale chapter):

   
   A group of Delta Kappa Epsilon pledges made national news for standing in Yale University’s freshman quad and chanting such knee slappers as "No means yes! Yes means anal!" while holding up a sign that read "Welcome Yale sluts!" After the incident, The Federal Department of Education and Office for Civil Rights launched investigations prompted by complaints by students who contended that Yale is a hostile sexual environment and that it has "not a zero-tolerance policy, but a tolerance policy." The fraternity was suspended by the university for five years.

4. Pi Kappa Alpha (Tulane University chapter):

   
   The Tulane chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha was closed and their house sold after several members were arrested for their participation in boiling their pledges. Yes, you read that correctly. The pledges endured what was called a "Crab Boil," where members of Pi Kappa Alpha poured boiling water and cayenne pepper onto their backs. Apparently, if you screamed, you were spared from more boiling water and suffering more extensive burns. The chapter’s charter was revoked by their national organization.

5. Kappa Alpha Psi (Southeast Missouri State chapter):

   
   Beatings are an old hazing tradition. Such physical abuse is not exclusive to, but is indeed an acknowledged and ongoing problem in black fraternity pledging. A Kappa Alpha Psi pledge named Michael Davis was beaten by members over the course of several days until he ultimately died of brain damage. His autopsy revealed a lacerated kidney, damaged liver, and broken ribs. Pledges of black fraternities are sometimes encouraged to endure such beatings because "the world" outside of the fraternity will give them one that’s much worse because of the color of their skin.

6. Sigma Alpha Epsilon (Cal Poly chapter):

   
   Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s Cal Poly chapter came under fire after four of its members were arrested in connection with the alcohol-related death of pledge Carson Starkey. Starkey had been told to consume huge amounts of alcohol during a hazing, er, we mean "pledging" ritual, until he suffered a respiratory arrest. His autopsy revealed at the time of death he had a blood alcohol content equivalent to the effects of surgical anesthesia.

7. Several fraternity chapters at the University of San Diego, Calif.:

   
   Although only one specific fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, was named in this incident, students from several fraternities were responsible for coordinating a "Compton Cookout," a party that invited its guests to wear blackface and "experience the various elements of life in the ghetto." Participants were encouraged by way of a Facebook invite to wear "oversized clothing" and display tattoos. Women were encouraged to dress as "ghetto chicks." The president of Pi Kappa Alpha at the time condemned the party, stating that the fraternity had not planned or endorsed it. Despite public outcry and efforts by the university to educate its students about something commonly known as "racism," plans went ahead by students for a second, similarly themed event, "Compton Cookout Part Deux."

8. Sigma Alpha Epsilon (Cornell University chapter):

   
   The Cornell University chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s annual kidnapping worked in the reverse of most hazing where freshman pledges were required to kidnap older students. George Desdunes was one S.A.E. brother, a sophomore, who was unlucky enough to be kidnapped by a couple of pledges. Desdunes was duct taped, fed large amounts of vodka until he vomited, and, after he had passed out, left in the fraternity’s library where he was found dead by a cleaning staff person. The university suspended the fraternity, and Desdunes’ mother is seeking $25 million in damages from the fraternity for the wrongful death of her son.
   
   
   Related reading: Colleges, Facebook and Binge Drinking

Dems Bristle at Obama-Holder Botched Gun Operation

Four House Democrats have suggested that they'll break ranks and join Republicans to vote against Holder for his refusal to turn over documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.

Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah was the first to cross the party line, announcing his intention on Tuesday. Matheson, the New York Times reminds us, is running for reelection in the country’s most Republican district currently represented by a Democrat.

Reps. John Barrow of Georgia, Nick Rahall of West Virginia and Collin Peterson of Minnesota have also suggested they'll vote with Republicans. Citing unnamed sources, Fox News reports that when all is said and done, as many as 20 House Democrats may cross the party line.

All four were among the 31 Democrats who sent a letter to Obama last year expressing their concern over how the botched gun-walking operation was handled.

Read more here.

Senate Committee Investigating "Epidemic of Deaths" from Narcotic Painkillers

The US Senate's Finance Committee has asked seven organisations, including the well-known Center for Practical Bioethics, in Kansas City, for information about financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. This inquiry is part of the committee's investigation of links between manufacturers, doctors and organisations which have advocated increased use of narcotic painkillers.


The Committee claims that the US is suffering from "an epidemic of accidental deaths and addiction resulting from the increased sale and use of powerful narcotic painkillers" and that opioid-based prescription painkillers kill more people than heroin and cocaine combined. It is concerned about "extensive ties between companies that manufacture and market opioids and non-profit organisations".


The Centre for Practical Bioethics also received a letter demanding information about financial ties because Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin and other pain drugs, is a substantial donor. Myra Christopher, its founder and former president, is an outspoken advocate of pain relief, especially in palliative care. She has always insisted that funds came with no strings attached. The Center says that it will cooperate fully in the investigation.


Because the American Journal of Bioethics is linked to the Center through Glen McGee, the founding editor of AJOB and a former ethicist at the Center, some bioethicists have alleged that AJOB will be drawn into the investigation. AJOB has vigorously denied this. "No financial relationship exists or ever existed between AJOB and Purdue Pharmaceuticals or any pharmaceutical company. AJOB received no financial support from the Center for Practical Bioethics," it says on its blog.

Related reading:  Government Regulation and Independent Findings; Oxygen-Ozone Healing Study Abandoned; Big Pharma Loves Contraception Push; Drug Patents: What's in the Pipeline?; Glacko Smith Kline Good Business

50,000+ Dead in Mexico Since January 2000

SOURCE: Committee to Protect Journalists 

(CPJ/IFEX) - CAFOD (Catholic Overseas Development Agency) is launching a new photo exhibition, developed in collaboration with The Guardian and the Committee to Protect Journalists. 'The Silenced: Fighting for Press Freedom in Mexico' launches on 3 May - Press Freedom Day - and commemorates Mexican reporters who have lost their lives in pursuit of truth. 

Mexico is considered one of the worst places in Latin America for press freedom and one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Since 2000, 55 journalists have been murdered in Mexico, 18 of them since the start of 2010. 

Since the launch of President Filipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartels in 2006, the number of drug-related killings - including those of journalists - has been on the increase. By January 2011 more than 50,000 people - gang members, security forces, police, journalists and innocent bystanders - were estimated to have been killed in drug-related violence. At present the situation appears to be worsening for journalists near the northern border areas, especially around Chihuahua, due to drug smuggling activities by drug cartels. 

CAFOD's photo exhibition 'The Silenced: Fighting for Press Freedom in Mexico' has been developed in collaboration with The Guardian and the Committee to Protect Journalists. 'The Silenced' is a growing group of journalists and media professionals who have been killed for reporting the reality of the country's drugs cartels and their power networks, or have been caught in the cross-fire of drug violence. The exhibition will mark the courage and determination of 'The Silenced' and those who continue to fight to tell the truth about the Latin American drug cartels, despite the risks. 

Visit the 'The Silenced' website to find out more 

For more information:

Committee to Protect Journalists
330 7th Ave., 11th Floor 
New York, NY 10001 
USA 
info (@) cpj.org 
Phone: +1 212 465 1004
Fax: +1 212 465 9568
http://www.cpj.org 
@pressfreedom

US Agents' Death Due to Auto Design

MEXICO CITY — When U.S. special agent Jaime Zapata was shot dead one year ago on a notorious stretch of highway in central Mexico, he was driving a $160,000 armored Chevy Suburban, built to exacting government standards, designed to defeat high-velocity gunfire, fragmentation grenades and land mines.


But the vehicle had a basic, fatal flaw.

Forced off the road in a well-coordinated ambush, surrounded by drug cartel gunmen brandishing AK-47s, Zapata and his partner, Victor Avila, rolled to a stop. Zapata put the vehicle in park.

The door locks popped open.

That terrifying sound — a quiet click — set into motion events that remain under investigation. When Zapata needed it most, the Suburban’s elaborate armoring was rendered worthless by a consumer-friendly automatic setting useful for family vacations and hurried commuters but not for U.S. agents driving through a red zone in Mexico.

Read the full report here.

Drug Test Welfare Recips AND Lawmakers

A Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly withdrew his bill to create a pilot program for drug testing welfare applicants Friday after one of his Democratic colleagues amended the measure to require drug testing for lawmakers.

"There was an amendment offered today that required drug testing for legislators as well and it passed, which led me to have to then withdraw the bill," said Rep. Jud McMillin (R-Brookville), sponsor of the original welfare drug testing bill.

The Supreme Court ruled drug testing for political candidates unconstitutional in 1997, striking down a Georgia law. McMillin said he withdrew his bill so he could reintroduce it on Monday with a lawmaker drug testing provision that would pass constitutional muster.


Read it all here.


 
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. 

Zetas Dismember Female Journalist

Miami, September 26, 2011 - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today condemned yet another journalist's murder in Mexico and blamed the government of President Felipe Calderón "for lacking the political will needed" to implement a strategy to end the violence, administer justice and ensure full freedom of the press.

The IAPA's reaction came after Mexican authorities discovered on Saturday the dismembered body of journalist María Elizabeth Macías Castro, 39, news editor for the daily Primera Hora in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, on the United States border. According to local media she worked via social media, under the pen name "La Nena de Laredo" (The Laredo Girl) to expose activities of organized crime in the region.

Macías was abducted on Friday and her body was found the next day near a monument to Christopher Columbus in the town square. Beside her remains were a computer keyboard, mouse, cables, earphones and speakers, and a message saying, "I am here because of my reports and yours . . . for those who don't want to believe, this happened to me because of my actions." The note was signed with her pseudonym, "La Nena de Laredo", followed by the letters "ZZZZ" used by the Zetas drug trafficking cartel.

IAPA President Gonzalo Marroquín voiced frustration on noting "the failure to carry out the promises of President Felipe Calderón, who just one year ago assured us at a meeting that he would redouble efforts to guarantee the safety of reporters and pursue reforms so that crimes against journalists would be treated as federal offenses."

"It is totally unacceptable," Marroquín, president of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Siglo 21, declared, "for the government to lack the necessary political will to implement the reforms." He added, "The lack of action and guarantees has given rise to an evident culture of self-censorship that is undermining the work of the press and the public's right to be informed."

The chairman of the IAPA's Impunity Committee, Juan Francisco Ealy Ortiz, expressed condemnation of "this new murder of a journalist," saying that, "while we are not sure of the motives in each of the crimes, we cannot fail to denounce them and to call for immediate action by the authorities to solve them, above all when this year alone nine journalists have been slain and another has gone missing."

Ealy Ortiz, president of the Mexico City, Mexico, newspaper El Universal, also reproached the Mexican Congress for being "slow and negligent" to move ahead on a bill to make crimes against freedom of expression federal offenses - a reference to the debate by lawmakers on enactment of the initiative held several weeks ago. "Violence and the crimes against journalists," he said, "are not something that has emerged in 2011. For years we have witnessed how criminals continue to gain ground and use violence to settle their disputes, and meanwhile in Mexico the fact remains that strong decisions are not made."

In November last year, during the IAPA's General Assembly in Mérida, federal legislators from the Chamber of Deputies' Special Committee for the Monitoring of Attacks on Journalists promised to work on the proposal for federalization, as well as a stiffening of penalties and a provision that would make crimes against journalists exempt from statutes of limitations. There has, however, been no progress on this to date.

The IAPA made its views on the issue known to the Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes Against Journalists during its Universities Hemispheric Conference held late last month in Puebla, Mexico, when it criticized the lack of concrete action to solve more than a hundred crimes committed in the last two decades.

In addition to Macías, the following journalists have been murdered in Mexico in 2011: Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocío González Trápaga of Mexico City; Humberto Millán Salazar of Sinaloa; Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, Miguel Angel López Velasco and Noel López Olguín of Veracruz, and Luis Emmanuel Ruiz Carrillo and Rodolfo Ochoa Moreno of Coahuila, while the whereabouts of Marco Antonio López of Guerrero remain unknown.


For more information:

Inter American Press Association
"Jules Dubois Building"
1801 SW 3rd Ave.
Miami, FL 33129
USA
Phone: +1 305 634 3465
Fax: +1 305 635 2272
http://www.sipiapa.org/

What US Journalists Must Realize

In a surprisingly quick response, Mexican federal police secured the freedom of 4 journalists who were taken hostage by a drug ring in the region of Durango, arresting 3 men on Wednesday in Gómez Palacio, the city where the four journalists were abducted.  The hostages were found in separate houses.

Carlos Lauria, of the Commitee to Protect Journalists, said "We applaud Mexican federal authorities for making speedy progress in investigating the kidnapping of our colleagues," said Lauría. "But arrests are the first step only. We will monitor the judicial process to see that these arrests are followed by a full and thorough prosecution."

Wednesday's arrests were an unusually fast response by authorities in a country where more than 90 percent of violent anti-press crimes go unsolved, according to CPJ research. "Mexican authorities must break the cycle of impunity in journalists' crimes as the wave of violence is causing lasting damage to Mexican democracy," Lauría said.


Mexico is one of the world's most dangerous countries for the press, CPJ research shows. More than 30 journalists have been killed and disappeared since President Felipe Calderón came to power in 2006.

Read more here.

This is what American journalists can look forward to if the USA and Mexico don't cooperate in aggressively shutting down the cartels, eliminating corruption and addressing the problem of illegal immigration.

Wake Up, America! Hizballah is Coming.

Lebanese terrorist militia Hizballah is eager to threaten not only Israel, but its allies in the US as well. What better way to reach them than to team up with the top infiltrators of American borders, the Mexican drug cartels?

According to congresswoman Sue Myrick (R-NC), Hizballah agents are coming to Latin America, learning Spanish and then working with drug cartels in the Mexico-US border region to obtain falsified US entry passes. She warned Hizballah could start threatening the southern US from Mexico just as it threatens northern Israel from Lebanon.

Myrick, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she has called on Homeland Security to investigate the matter.

Hizballah has been operating drug trafficking rings in South America for years. The largest operate along the Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay border.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has also befriended the terror group. Several years ago he invited Hizballah to operate freely in his country.

Source: Israel Today

Cartel Named in Killing of Torre and Aides

Traders sold Mexico's peso heavily as TV images showed the bodies of Rodolfo Torre, 46, and four aides from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which holds power in Tamaulipas, lying on a highway. They were ambushed on their way to a campaign event for the July 4 state election.

It was Mexico's highest-level political murder in some 16 years and the latest blow to the country's image as a stable emerging market as drug gangs brazenly fight security forces deployed to quash their power and try to sway Sunday's vote for governors, mayors and local deputies in a dozen states.

"This is not a message, it's a challenge. How far are they prepared to go?" said national security specialist Javier Oliva at Mexico's National Autonomous University in Mexico City.

President Felipe Calderón slammed what he called a cowardly attack on Mexico's democratic institutions and vowed to keep up his fight against drug gangs. He called an emergency security cabinet meeting and urged political parties to stand together.

Read it all here.

Mexican Drug Lords Killing Journalists

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has confirmed in a visit to the central states of Durango and Coahuila that they continue to experience a high rate of press freedom violations one year after journalist Eliseo Barrón Hernández's murder in Goméz Palacio, in Durango.

The drug cartels and Los Zetas, a paramilitary group that is in their pay, are the main instigators of the violence and threats against local journalists, who live in permanent fear. In May 2010, at least three local newspapers were the target of threats or reprisals that were directly linked to their coverage of organised crime.

The "Noticias de El Sol de la Laguna" newspaper immediately decided to stop covering crime after threats were made against one of its reporters, Javier Adame Gómez, on 20 May. The threats followed the publication of reports about an attack in Torreón in which eight people died.

A few days later, Karla Guadalupe Tinoco Santillán, "La Opinión"'s correspondent in the municipality of Vicente Guerrero (Durango), received threatening telephone messages warning her "not to get in our way." The messages, which were typical of the kind used by organised crime, were prompted by an article she wrote about a series of kidnappings.

The same week, on 30 May, gunmen burst into the home of another "La Opinión" journalist, but only his wife and children were present. The next day, another newspaper in the region, "Express de Multimedios", was ordered to publish photos of six decapitated heads that had been found that morning "or else the journalists would suffer the same fate".

Although the state of Coahuila amended its criminal code in May 2008, making murders of journalists punishable by a minimum of 60 years in prison with no possibility of parole, violence against the media continues. Two journalists were killed in May 2009. Carlos Ortega Melo Samper of "Tiempo de Durango" was murdered in Santa María del Oro (Durango) on 3 May 2009. The body of Eliseo Barrón, a crime reporter for the weekly "Milenio Torreón", was found three weeks later.

Two more journalists were murdered in quick succession in the same region in late 2009 and early 2010. They were Vladimir Antuna García of "Tiempo de Durango", who was found dead on 2 November 2009, and Valentín Valdés Espinosa of "Zócalo de Saltillo", who was kidnapped in Coahuila on 7 January 2010 and was found dead the next day.

"What's new?" was the question posed by journalist Julian Parra Ibarra in an editorial published on 31 May 2010 to mark the first anniversary of Barrón's death. A year after his murder and the arrest on 6 June 2009 of five members of Los Zetas on suspicion of carrying out the killing, the investigation has ground to a halt.

"Is there anything positive we can derive from this sad story?" the editorial asked. "Are there any grounds for thinking his fight was not in vain?" Like the editorialist, who was a friend of Barrón's, Reporters Without Borders comes to the same conclusion: "Nothing has changed and, worse still, no one says anything."

Now commonplace, the threats against journalists are leading to more and more self-censorship. Whenever an article about the activities of organised crime is published in a regional newspaper, the author is putting his life, and the lives of his family and colleagues, in danger.

This climate of terror is not new. Violent crime, including kidnapping, which is now widespread, has been growing since 2007 and affects all sectors of the population. Rafael Ortiz Martínez of the daily "Zócalo" in Monclova (Coahuila), has been missing since July 2006. Onésimo Zúñiga of "Noticias de El Sol de La Laguna" was kidnapped for several hours by an armed group in April 2007.

This sad state of affairs is not attributable to organised crime alone. It also concerns the authorities in states such as Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, where a second humanitarian convoy trying to reach the Triqui indigenous village of San Juan Copala had to turn back because of a lack of security guarantees.

The armed attack on the first convoy on 27 April 2010 left a toll of two humanitarian activists dead and a journalist wounded (David Cilia of the magazine "Contralínea"). Ixtli Martínez, the Oaxaca correspondent for MVS-Radio and the Associated Press, sustained a gunshot injury during clashes between students on the campus of the Benito Juárez Autonomous University in the city of Oaxaca on 10 June.

Finally, Reporters Without Borders regards the comments that Interior Minister Fernando Francisco Gómez Mont, the No. 2 in the federal government, made recently about journalists as inappropriate and dangerous. Gómez, who was interviewed by Reporters Without Borders during a previous visit in July 2009, accused journalists of "glorifying drug trafficking and speaking ill of Mexico" and said they were entirely to blame for their own fate in places such as the troubled border city of Ciudad Juárez, where the press is increasingly complaining of abuses and violence perpetrated by the army.

Reporters Without Borders is of the view that his comments increase the dangers for all of Mexico's regional media and the lack or protection for journalists. A total of 62 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, while 11 others have gone missing since 2003.

For more information:

Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51

Reporters Without Borders
http://www.rsf.org/

Mexico's Drug Wars

Although Mexico has been a producer and transit route for illegal drugs for generations, the country now finds itself in a pitched battle with powerful and well-financed drug cartels. Top police commanders have been assassinated and grenades thrown, in one case into the crowd at an Independence Day celebration.

The upsurge in drug-related violence is traced to the end of 2006 when President Felipe Calderón launched a frontal assault on the cartels by deploying tens of thousands of soldiers and federal police to take them on. Mr. Calderon has successfully pushed the United States to acknowledge its own responsibility for the violence in Mexico since it is American drug consumers who fuel demand and American guns smuggled into Mexico that are used by the drug gangs.

Reflecting concern over drug trafficking, in June 2010 a Justice Department report described a "high and increasing" availability of methamphetamine mainly because of large-scale drug production in Mexico

Read it all here.

Obama, Calderon Must Address Press Crisis

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 18, 2010 - The Committee to Protect Journalists urges U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderón to put Mexico's press freedom crisis on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting in Washington. CPJ also calls on Calderón to continue to advocate for reforms that will strengthen federal accountability in crimes against freedom of expression.

Calderón will spend two days in Washington to meet Obama and address a joint meeting of Congress.

A wave of unprecedented violence related to organized crime has markedly increased the last few years, despite a decision by Calderón to deploy more than 25,000 troops and federal police to fight drug trafficking. Media killings and disappearances have made Mexico one of the world's most dangerous countries for the press, CPJ research shows.

The effects of violence can be felt on both sides of the border. Widespread self-censorship as a result of fear is preventing the Mexican media from reporting the news and U.S. reporters covering the drug trade have also faced threats and intimidation. Violence has become so pervasive that trafficking organizations now exert effective censorship over key issues that resonate on both sides of the border.

"The level of violence against journalists in Mexico has become an international concern and must be included as part of bilateral discussions," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "While it is up to the Mexican government to address this problem, President Obama should make it clear that the U.S. has deep concerns about the situation and considers it a priority."

Since Calderón took office in December 2006, 20 journalists have been killed in Mexico, at least five in direct reprisal for their work. The situation has been particularly alarming in those areas where powerful drug cartels fight for dominance. The dangerous climate is fostered by a culture of impunity in which 90 percent of deadly anti-press crimes go unsolved, CPJ research shows.

Four journalists have been killed so far in 2010. Victims include reporter Valentín Valdés Espinosa, who was found dead on January 8, in Saltillo, northern Mexico. A reporter with the newspaper Zócalo de Saltillo, Valdés had covered a Mexican army raid in which a leader of the Gulf drug cartel was arrested.

In addition to journalists' killings, six reporters have gone missing since December 2006. In its special report "The Disappeared," released in September 2008, CPJ said the tally was nearly unprecedented worldwide. The spike in disappearances may reflect the involvement of local government officials, CPJ reported. Journalists had investigated government corruption and organized crime before they were killed or went missing, according to CPJ research.

In April, CPJ released its annual Impunity Index, a list of countries in which journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. Mexico is among the 10 worst countries in the world in terms of impunity, CPJ found.

Prompted by the wave of violence, a CPJ delegation met with Calderón in June 2008 in Mexico City. After the meeting, Calderón pledged his commitment to federalize crimes against free expression. The delegation presented him with a set of principles to safeguard expression for all citizens, including journalists, and to make crimes against free expression the responsibility of federal rather than state authorities.

CPJ has vigorously advocated for federal oversight of crimes against the press, saying it would provide Mexican society with a better legal framework for protection of free expression. In response to CPJ's advocacy, in October 2008, Calderón sent to Congress a proposed constitutional amendment to make a federal offense any crime related to "violations of society's fundamental values, national security, human rights, or freedom of expression, or for which their social relevance will transcend the domain of the states." But these reforms have stalled in Congress.

"Murder and silence are taking a huge toll on the press while undermining Mexican democracy," said CPJ's Simon. "Swift actions are needed. President Calderón must uphold his commitment for the protection of freedom of expression by encouraging Congress to pass legislation that will create a system of federal accountability."

For more information:

Committee to Protect Journalists
330 7th Ave., 11th Floor
New York, NY 10001
USA
info (@) cpj.org
Phone: +1 212 465 1004
Fax: +1 212 465 9568

Committee to Protect Journalists
http://www.cpj.org/

Mexico: Drug Violence Escalating

Bodies stacked in the morgues of Mexico's border cities tell the story of an escalating drug war. Drug violence claimed 6,290 people last year, double the previous year, and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009.

Each bullet wound or broken bone details the viciousness with which the cartels battle a government crackdown and each other. Slain policemen lie next to hit men in the rows of zipped white bags.

Workers toil up to 12 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, to examine the remains. When Tijuana coffin makers fell behind during the December holidays, the morgue there crammed 200 bodies into two refrigerators made to hold 80.

"There are times here when there are so many people, so many cadavers, that we can't keep up," says the Tijuana morgue director, Federico Ortiz.

In Ciudad Juarez, the border city with the most killings, Molina prepares to make a dead man talk. Investigators press each finger of the headless body on a pad for fingerprints.

Molina guesses from his face he was probably in his 30s.

She carefully lays out his bloodied clothing on a red plastic sheet. She pieces together his knife-shredded T-shirt picturing a wanted poster for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. She lays the tags showing the brands of his jeans and boxers flat before snapping photographs of each.

"Sometimes we show family these photos, and they'll say it's his clothing but it's not him," says Molina, a 41-year-old mother of five. "It's a defense mechanism."

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