Only a few days have passed since 2022 began and two journalists have already been killed in Mexico. The director of digital media Info, José Luis Gamboa, was stabbed on January 10 in the Port of Veracruz, and this Monday morning, the photographer Margarito Martínez received several shots at the door of his home in Tijuana. They are the new face of the violence suffered by journalists in the country, which is the deadliest in the world for the press. In 2021, nine reporters died violently.
A few hours after the State Commission for Attention and Protection of Journalists (CEAPP) confirmed the death of José Luis Gamboa in Veracruz, on the other side of the country, the Cadena group fired its photojournalist Margarito Martínez in Baja California. Journalists’ associations have demanded that prosecutors investigate whether the crimes were caused by their work.
He was wearing blue jeans and a brown shirt when the body of José Luis Gamboa was found on the ground on a street in the Floresta subdivision, south of the Port of Veracruz, according to local media reports. Gamboa came from a reputable family of journalists in Veracruz. His father, Apolonio Gamboa, was the founder of the newspaper The news, of which José Luis was director; his brother Polo was also a distinguished communicator in the state.
The reporter had founded in 2003 a weekly news page called The Northern Regional or Info, in which he hung articles of political information and events. What’s more, he was very active on his twitter account and uploaded video editorials to YouTube. In these three outlets, Gamboa shared the alleged connections between organized crime and the political elites of Veracruz: “The tragedy of Mexico is that what is subjugating the country by municipalities is drug trafficking, instead of fighting it, the entire structure of governmental powers is linked in a great criminal association”.
His accusations were direct and reached the former governor of Veracruz, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, and his relatives, all linked to the mayor’s offices of different municipalities of the State. “The Port of Veracruz has been under the domination of international crime for 35 years. The CJNG operates in the port area, where families of political power are linked, including the Yunes,” wrote the journalist, who insisted over and over again in his articles that Veracruz had become the gateway for fentanyl to the United States. .
Although the CEAPP has confirmed that there were no previous reports of threats against the reporter, Gamboa was aware of the danger of his statements: “From the moment that the Mexican press exhibits or indicates links between political or business actors and drug traffickers, the authority must proceed to the investigation, and the reverse happens, the State and its institutions investigate and persecute the journalist, if they don’t kill him first”.
Shots fired at the door of Margarito Esquivel’s house
This morning, around 12:45 p.m., the photographer Margarito Esquivel left his house in Tijuana, in the Sánchez Taboada neighborhood. There he was shot dead. The 49-year-old photojournalist specialized in police events and news. He worked for Grupo Cadena and the weekly Zeta, and also collaborated with international media such as the BBC.
“Information revealed by witnesses indicates that one of Martínez Esquivel’s neighbors was consuming intoxicating drinks, identified only by the name of Juan, he was the one who shot Margarito Martínez,” points out the weekly where the photographer worked. According to witnesses, the two men had a dispute over the ownership of some land. “Which, points out the authority in the first line of investigation, would be the motive for the murder. The one identified as a suspect, Juan, fled the place in an unknown direction, ”the media publishes.
Mexico is the deadliest country in the world for the press, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Jan-Albert Hoosten, a CPJ representative, explained to EL PAÍS that Mexico is the only nation where the levels of lethal violence against journalists have not changed, but rather remain the same with the different governments: “Violence is a constant. And the conclusion after three years of the López Obrador government is that not only has he not been able to solve the dozens of murders of journalists, defenders and activists, but he has done very little to prevent them.”
The organization, which has been keeping a global count of these attacks since 1992, registered until the end of 2021 138 murders in Mexico. Article 19, a Mexican organization that defends freedom of expression, computes even higher figures: 145 since 2000.
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