The UN human rights office in Mexico said on Wednesday that journalists in Mexico will need more protection after this Gunmen killed a journalist whose Facebook news page reported on the violent state of Michoacan in western Mexico. Less than 24 hours later, an entertainment reporter in the western city of Colima was murdered in a restaurant she owned.
Journalist Mauricio Solís of the news page Minuto por Minuto was shot dead late Tuesday, shortly after conducting a sidewalk interview with the mayor of the city of Uruapan. A second person was injured in the shooting, according to prosecutors.
Solís had just finished an interview on the street in front of City Hall with Mayor Carlos Manzo. Manzo told local media that he ran away and “two minutes later, I think, and just a few meters away, we heard gunshots, four or five gunshots.”
“We took cover because we thought the attack was on us,” Manzo said. “After a few minutes we found out that Mauricio was the one they were attacking.”
Manzo said he could not rule out a link between the interview and the murder.
Armando Solis/AP
The radio station where Solis worked mourned his killing in a statement on social media.
“Mauricio was more than a colleague, he was an unconditional friend, a source of inspiration and a tireless voice in service to our community,” the station said.
The U.N. rights office said Solís was at least the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year. It said he had previously reported security issues related to his work. His Facebook page posted about community events and the drug cartel violence that plagued the city.
“His murder is a wake-up call to defend the right to information and freedom of expression in Mexico,” the office wrote.
An increasing number of journalists killed in Mexico were self-employed and reported for local Facebook and online news sites.
Uruapan is the closest major city to Michoacan’s avocado-growing region and has been the scene of drug cartel extortions and battles between gangs. The cartels are demanding protection money from local avocado and lime orchards, cattle ranches and almost every other business.
Solís reported about a suspicious fire at a local market just before the shooting. Gangs have sometimes set fire to businesses that refuse to pay extortion demands.
Then, entertainment reporter Patricia Ramírez González was found with serious injuries in her restaurant in Colima on Wednesday afternoon and died on the spot, the Colima prosecutor’s office said.
According to local media, Ramírez, better known as Paty Bunbury, published a blog about local entertainment and contributed to a Colima newspaper.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned both killings and called for transparent investigations.
Mexico, ravaged by violence related to drug trafficking, is one of the world’s regions most dangerous countries for journalistssay news advocacy groups.
Reporters Without Borders says more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1994 – and 2022 was one of the deadliest years ever for journalists in Mexico, with at least 15 dead.
Media workers do regularly targeted in Mexicooften in direct retaliation for their work on issues such as corruption and the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers.
In August, a Mexican journalist reported on one of the country’s most dangerous crime stories killed by armed menand two of his government-assigned bodyguards were injured.
In April it was Roberto Figueroa, who reported on local politics and gained a large following on social media through satirical videos found dead in a car in his hometown of Huitzilac in Morelos, a state south of Mexico City where drug-fueled violence is rampant.
All but a handful of murders and kidnappings remain unsolved.
“Impunity is the norm in crimes against the press,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report on Mexico in March.
