Reporter covering Mexico bloodshed found beaten to death
Warning: Story contains graphic image
A journalist was found beaten to death on a dirt path in Mexico — becoming the third reporter to be killed in the country in the past two weeks, local prosecutors said.
see also Mexico is more dangerous than ever Mexico posted its highest homicide rate in decades, with the...
Hector Gonzalez Antonio, who chronicled the bloodshed flooding his home state of Tamaulipas for the paper Excelsior, became a victim of it. His corpse was discovered Tuesday on a narrow road in Ciudad Victoria, his shirt and pants soaked in blood, wearing only one shoe, according to an image by Agence France-Presse.
The Tamaulipas attorney general’s office said in a statement Tuesday they are investigating what prompted the murder.
Bordering Texas, Tamaulipas is one of the most lawless states in the country, ravaged by gang violence and drug trafficking.
Another reporter, Carlos Dominguez, a 77-year-old columnist who covered corruption and organized crime in the country for over 40 years, was stabbed at a traffic light there in front of his family in January — making him the first journalist to be murdered in Mexico this year.
Gonzalez is the sixth journalist to be killed in the country in 2018. Last year, nine journalists were killed there, according to the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, making Mexico one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists.
On May 15, gunmen killed radio news host Juan Carlos Huerta in Tabasco state. And on May 24, Alicia Diaz Gonzalez, a business reporter, was found killed in her home in Monterrey.
Gonzalez wrote about security and politics — two notoriously dangerous subjects for Mexican reporters, Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico representative for CJP, told the Los Angeles Times.
“There is no indication that the situation for journalists in Mexico will improve. There’s a complete lack of political will to put a stop to these killings,” Margaux Ewen, the North America director of Reporters Without Borders, told the Washington Post in February.
On Wednesday, colleagues rallied around Gonzalez.
“Rest in peace, dear Hector. You were a great reporter and we will remember you… We will never stop demanding justice,” tweeted Pascal Beltran del Rio, editorial director of Excelsior.
With Post wires