Six journalists have been murdered in Mexico this year
,
five of them in just over two months, marking one of the deadliest spikes in violence against journalists that
CPJ has documented
in over a decade.
Despite
several
organized
calls for justice
in the Mexican states where the reporters were killed, government authorities have not addressed concerns by local journalists and press freedom groups that journalists are being targeted in connection with their work. President Claudia Sheinbaum, who assumed office as Mexico’s first female president in late 2024, has not commented on the string of killings as a whole, nor has her government announced any specific actions in response.
At a state level, responses have been equally lacking. Gov. Salomón Jara of Oaxaca condemned a journalist’s murder in his state,
but faces criticism over his frequent verbal attacks
against critical reporting. In Veracruz, where three of this year’s killings took place, Gov. Rocío Nahle
denied during a June 15 press conference
that her state has a press violence problem. Beyond announcing investigations, the state governments of Puebla and Guerrero have not directly addressed the killings of Josué Martínez and Alex Serna.
In response, CPJ has called on the Mexican Federal Attorney General’s office (FGR) to federalize all cases of killed journalists, increase coordination between federal and state authorities, and strengthen protective measures for all journalists under the federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.
Federal authorities not only have broad authority, according to
Article 21 of the Mexican National Code of Penal Procedures
, to take charge of investigations of crimes against journalists when public officials are involved, but they also have shown to be more effective in the past in winning convictions in several high-profile cases of murdered journalists, including the 2017 killings of
Miroslava Breach Velducea
and
