Mexico and Syria are among the deadliest places for reporters, new studies show.
Gumaro Perez, a Mexican journalist in his mid-30s, arrived at an elementary school in the eastern state of Veracruz on Tuesday morning to enjoy a Christmas celebration with his 6-year-old son.
Valdez, 50, who worked for Agence France-Presse and other media, was shot near the premises of one of the Mexican news outlets he worked for in the city of Culiacan in Mexico’s violent Sinaloa state. Valdez was the fifth journalist to be killed this year in a country plagued by violence related to drug gangs, according to officials and media rights groups.
/ AFP PHOTO / FERNANDO BRITO (Photo credit should read FERNANDO BRITO/AFP/Getty Images)
He was dead before noon. Two gunmen burst into the building and opened fire, according to local media reports, shooting Perez four times in a classroom filled with dozens of children.
Perez had covered criminal issues, including drug trafficking, for a variety of Mexican news outlets. His death brings to 12 the number of journalists slain in retaliation for their work over the past year in Mexico ― the world’s most dangerous country to be a reporter outside of active war zones. Mexico’s 2017 death toll for professional media workers is now on par with that of Syria, which has been mired in brutal civil war for nearly seven years.
Reports released this week from Reporters Without Borders, also known as Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), reveal an overall decline in the killings of journalists worldwide in 2017 compared with previous years. But both organizations warn that some of the reasons for this downward trend are not cause for celebration.
Reprisal Killings
RSF counted 50 professional reporters killed in the line of duty ― its lowest tally in 14 years ― in addition to the deaths of 15 citizen journalists and media workers. CPJ recorded 42 intentional slayings of journalists, the lowest such number since 2008.
Both RSF and CPJ, which conduct their research independently, had listed Syria and Mexico among the deadliest countries when their reports were published on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively.
The decrease of press worker deaths this year could be due in part to greater global efforts to protect reporters, but has also been driven by journalists’ self-censorship. Fearful for their lives and safety, many are fleeing dangerous nations or changing professions, which fuels a cycle of impunity for press freedom predators.
Impunity for journalists’ killings begets more killing. Barbara Trionfi, executive director of the International Press Institute
Authoritarian regimes have also cracked down on dissent by detaining and thus silencing their critics, which has also contributed to fewer deaths in 2017.
It’s a relief to see a drop in the number of annual deaths and we hope it marks an end to the overall global trend in recent decades of increasing killings, said Barbara Trionfi, executive director of the International Press Institute, which also published the findings of its research into journalist deaths on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, she continued, the brutal murders of so many journalists this year in Mexico and so many other countries tragically show how impunity for journalists’ killings begets more killing.
As its drug crisis rages on, Mexico has become a hotspot for the disappearances and deaths of journalists ― especially those who work to uncover injustice and high-level corruption. CPJ’s 2011 International Press Freedom Award honoree, investigative reporter and editor Javier Valdez, was dragged from his car and shot dead in the northern city of Culiacán in May. He had written a series of books about the victims of Mexico’s cartel violence.
At least one journalist, Pakistani blogger Samar Abbas, disappeared in 2017 and remains missing today. Bangladeshi reporter Utpal Das, whose whereabouts had been unknown since Oct. 10, was found alive in the central region of Adhuria on Tuesday. He was reportedly abducted and held captive by unidentified assailants.
Both CPJ and RSF found that the number of female journalists killed in 2017 at least doubled since last year.