Local reporter found beheaded in Mexico's Veracruz state
September 10, 2020
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its appeal to Mexico’s federal and local authorities to take urgent measures to protect journalists throughout the country and, in particular, in the eastern state of Veracruz, where a local newspaper reporter yesterday became the fifth Mexican journalist to be murdered this year.
The body of Julio Valdivia Rodríguez, 41, was found yesterday afternoon a few kilometres outside Tezonapa, a municipality 100 km southwest of the city of Veracruz. RSF has been told residents called the police after finding his headless body and, a few meters away, his head and his motorcycle with his newspaper’s logo.
Rodríguez had been a Tezonapa-based local correspondent for the daily Diario El Mundo for the past seven years, covering general news. Because of an increase in violence in the area this year, he recently began specializing in what the Mexican media call “nota roja” – crime, accidents and natural disasters. His last report, on 7 September, was about an armed clash between the police and a local criminal gang.
“A crime of such brutality cannot go unpunished,” said Emmanuel Colombié, the head of RSF’s Latin America bureau. “The Veracruz authorities must lose no time in identifying this murder’s perpetrators and instigators and should focus their investigation on a link with the victim’s journalistic work. Reporters in Veracruz have been subjected to an absolutely appalling level of violence for more than a decade. We call on the local and federal authorities to take stock of the extreme vulnerability of journalists in Veracruz and do what is necessary to guarantee their safety.”
More:
https://rsf.org/en/news/local-reporter-found-beheaded-mexicos-veracruz-state
Julio Valdivia Rodríguez
Rest ini Peace.
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