Audio and text of story at the link…Thanks to Fronteras Desk reporter Michel Marizco for sending this story to the list…
"For consideration on the frontera list, I wanted to submit my story on the former newspaper editor-in-chief now accused of extorting news media outlets in the northwestern state of Sonora."
Blackmailing Media Outlets An Ongoing Problem In Mexico
Audio:
http://fronterasdesk.org/content/10250/blackmailing-media-outlets-ongoing-problem-mexico
It is pretty pitiful for Goodlatte and his committee and the right wing media point to ““Word has gotten out around the world about President Obama’s lax immigration enforcement policies…” Ignoring the more than 2 million deported under the current administration… Note the article from The NEW REPUBLIC posted below comparing the numbers of people returned/removed/deported in the Bush and Obama administrations:
But, do any of these numbers mention the fact that in general, deportations have gone down because the overall numbers of people coming into the country, especially from Mexico, have gone down since the high point in the early-2000s, mainly due to the recession in the US economy. The New Republic article (and the general focus on comparing administrations) is meaningless without considering the numbers of people actually coming or not coming.
In terms of the increase in people coming from Central America, those numbers will always be smaller than the numbers coming from Mexico–the countries are much smaller:
Guatemala 15 million
Honduras 8 million
El Salvador 6.5 million…(also despite its small size, El Salvador is by far the most densely populated country in the region with more than 300 people per square mile)
Compare to Mexico at 123 million…(with population density of about 60 per square mile)
http://www.photius.com/rankings/geography/population_density_persons_per_sq_km_2012_0.html
The journey is much more difficult, expensive and dangerous from Central America. Amnesty International has estimated that as many as 70,000 Central American immigrants have disappeared while traveling through Mexico in recent years.
Considering how the numbers of people, including children, are coming now from Central America, it seems clear that the conditions in those places are getting so desperate that the choice to leave becomes worth the risks. -molly
Juarez attorney Salvador Urbina Quiroz was assassinated yesterday in his office. A judge serving in the current city administration, César Cordero, was murdered also. The men were meeting in Urbina’s office and it is reported that 2 young men got out of a black pickup, came to the office and asked to see Urbina. The receptionist told them he was in a meeting. When he did not come out, the men took out their weapons, threatened the people in the outer office, then went into the private office, asked who was Urbina. When the men did not answer, both of them were shot to death. The shooters then left. Police and paramedics arrived, but nothing could be done for the victims.
The story indicates that two men were arrested, but no more details were provided before the paper went to press.
Salvador Urbina Quiroz had also worked as a journalist for El Diario de Juárez in 2004-2005 and for other media in Juarez. He was a leader of the Juarez legal community and was often consulted as a source by the news media as a critic of government authorities in fighting the violence. He has also served as subdirector of the state prison (CERESO). Urbina received many threats to his life and briefly fled to the US in 2011 after receiving a warning from the federal police. He had returned some time ago and continued to practice law until he was killed yesterday.
UPDATE May 27:
In total, 9 people were murdered yesterday in Juarez. The details are in the article below. It was the most violence day so far in 2014.
Asesinan A 9 Ayer En Distintos Hechos (El Diario)
‘Man in the Middle’ separates Ruben Salazar from his myth
By Yvonne Villarreal April 26, 2014, 6:00 a.m.
His is a name that has appeared in this publication’s pages hundreds of times — as an author and as a subject. It’s a name that calls up notions of the Latino struggle for civil rights and the radical Chicano movement in Los Angeles.
It’s also a name that initially made filmmaker Phillip Rodriguez groan when someone suggested the life behind the name as a subject for his next documentary.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
This article was first published in El Diario de Juárez on 14 February 2005. It has been translated without permission by the Mexican Journalism Translation Project (MxJTP). There is no web-accessible version of the Spanish-language original.
This translation is dedicated to the work of journalist Sandra Rodríguez Nieto.
Translator’s Note: Armando Rodríguez Carreón, “El Choco,” was a veteran crime reporter for El Diario de Juárez until his violent murder in November 2008. You can read a portrait of El Choco by his colleague Martín Orquiz for Nuestra Aparente Rendición, here (unofficially translated into English for the MxJTP).
Rodríguez’s murder continues in impunity, with multiple failures in the investigation. El Choco’s unsolved case is one that marks Mexico as infamous for its inability, or unwillingness, to get to the bottom of journalist’s murders, meaning that it ranks number 7 on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Impunity Index for 2014. In the Inter-American System of Human Rights, and pursuant to Mexico’s 1998 ratification of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), the state has the international responsibility to investigate, prosecute, and punish human rights abuses: among other human rights violations, Armando Rodríguez and his family have been denied access to justice for his murder, implying the state’s violation of a human rights treaty, the ACHR, it has ratified.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
Further evidence of Open Season, no bag limit, on MX journalists. And no drivers on the horizon to reverse direction. If anything, we can see more sanctioned scrubbing to polish the Pena/PRI image.
Mexican Rights Body: 89% of Attacks on Journalists Go Unpunished
MEXICO CITY – Some 89 percent of the attacks on journalists in Mexico go unpunished because authorities do not investigate the cases, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said.
Only about 19 percent of cases involving the killings and disappearances of journalists, as well as attacks on media outlets, end up in the hands of a judge, the CNDH said in a statement.
Suspects go to trial in just 11 percent of cases and barely 10 percent of judicial proceedings end with a conviction, “producing an impunity rate of 89 percent,” said the CNDH, Mexico’s equivalent of an ombudsman’s office.
Prosecutors are failing to investigate and gather evidence to clear up crimes against members of the media, “such as murders, disappearances, attacks, injuries, threats and intimidation, among others,” the CNDH said, adding that it made a recommendation in this area in August 2013.
Between Jan. 1, 2010, and Feb. 28, 2014, 347 complaints were received about violations of the human rights of members of the media, the CNDH said.
A total of 88 journalists and other members of the media have been murdered since 2000, “presumably, for reasons related to their work,” the rights body said…
Read the rest of the story by clicking here.
And in case you thought it was difficult before to get news and statistics on the violence in Mexico, now Mexico’s leaders will only give out information on murders in small “doses” that the public can handle… And President Pena Nieto asks the media to achieve an “equilibrium” between good news and bad news… If only Mr. Orwell were here to provide some good counsel… Thanks to Jose Luis for sending. His comments and the article follow:
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