A journalist was murdered in Mexico’s Colima state (west), local prosecutors said, 24 hours after her colleague was killed in Michoacán state, as the country continues to face a new wave of violence blamed on organized crime.
Her name was Patricia Ramirez, she was also known by the pseudonym Patty Benberry, was about 40 years old and covered general entertainment issues, according to preliminary information gathered and released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
The motive for her murder is not yet clear.
A day earlier, Mauricio Cruz Solis, 25, the director of the news website Minuto x Minuto and a show host on the local radio station La Poderosa Uruapan, was murdered.
These are the first two murders of journalists since new President Claudia Seinbaum took office at the beginning of this month.
Mexico is among the world’s most dangerous countries for media workers, according to press and journalist advocacy groups. More than 150 journalists have been murdered there since 2000, according to figures from the NGO Reporters sans frontières (RSF). According to another NGO, Article 19, 2022 was the deadliest year for the press in the country, with at least 13 murders of journalists recorded by authorities.
The region where Mauricio Cruz Solis was murdered, Uruapan, has been marked by brutal crimes – notably beheadings – attributed to clashes between rival drug cartels or confrontations between thugs and security forces.
More broadly, “improper collusion” between officials and organized crime poses a “serious threat to the safety of journalists,” RSF recently commented.
Media professionals who cover “sensitive issues linked to politics or crime, above all at the local level, are warned or threatened when they are not simply being murdered.”
Since 2010, Mexico has had a special prosecutor’s office specialised in crimes against journalists, and since 2012 a Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists has been created. But both institutions face major shortcomings in terms of budget and staffing.
The new President Seinbaum has announced that she will continue the policies of her predecessor and mentor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and will not escalate the so-called “war on drugs” that began in 2006.
The murders of journalists almost all go unpunished – as do many other homicides – in Mexico, where more than 450,000 murders and 100,000 disappearances have been recorded since 2006, according to official data.
