Mexican president vows to protect reporters after second murder in a week

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged Friday to ensure justice and protection for journalists after a second reporter was killed during his first week in office.

“We’re aware there must be justice and protection for journalists,” Lopez Obrador said in his morning press conference.

He told members of the media that his administration, whose plans include an ambitious public safety program, was committed to protecting all citizens and continuing to clear up unsolved murders, especially those targeting reporters, he said.

Presidential spokesman Jesus Ramirez Cuevas on Thursday denounced the murder of a reporter from the weekly Morelos, Diego Garcia Corona, who was shot and killed in Ecatepec, a city in the central state of Mexico.

“We’re working on a prevention, protection, access to justice and reparation plan that provides guarantees to journalists. Freedom of expression,” he tweeted.

The first journalist killed since Lopez Obrador’s inauguration last Saturday was Jesus Alejandro Marquez Jimenez, who was murdered last weekend in the western state of Nayarit.

Figures kept by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico indicated in the wake of Marquez’s death that at least 11 journalists had been killed in 2018, while one other reporter, Agustin Silva, has been missing since January.

Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders describes Mexico as the world’s most dangerous country for journalists.

Twelve journalists were slain in the Aztec nation last year, the same number as in war-torn Syria.