Three journalists slain in Mexico

MORE VICTIMS OF THE DRUG WAR IN NORTHERN MEXICO ARE LEFT ON THE STREET.  PICTURE: AP/FELIX MARQUEZ AP

THREE photojournalists who covered the perilous crime beat in the violence-torn eastern Mexico state of Veracruz have been killed.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon is leading international outrage at the growing number of journalist killings, with more than 60 deaths in 2011.


The Mexican journalists were found dumped in plastic bags in a canal yesterday, less than a week after a reporter for an investigative news magazine was beaten and strangled in her home in the same state, officials and colleagues say.


Press freedom groups said the three had temporarily fled the state after receiving threats last year.


They called for immediate government action to halt attacks that have killed at least seven reporters and photographers in Veracruz in 18 months.


Like most of the slain, the men found yesterday had been among the few journalists left working on crime-related stories in the state.
Threats and killings have spawned an atmosphere of terror and self-censorship among the journalists of Veracruz, with most local media outlets too intimidated to report on drug-related violence, and social media and blogs the only outlets reporting on serious crime.


Amid international tributes to journalists such as Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik, who were killed in the Syrian protest city of Homs in March, some press freedom groups say this year could see an even worse media death toll.


In Somalia, radio reporter Farhan Jeemis Abdulle was shot dead by gunmen on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, police said. Abdulle was the fifth Somali journalist shot dead this year.


The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said "countless" reporters "face intimidation, harassment and censorship at the hands of governments, corporations and powerful individuals seeking to preserve their power or hide wrongdoings and misdeeds".


"Impunity for those who attack or threaten journalists remains disturbingly prevalent," Ban added, calling attacks on journalists "outrageous".


Reporters Without Borders said even before the bodies of the Mexican photographers were found, 22 reporters and six bloggers and "citizen journalists" have already been killed since the start of the year.


According to Reporters Without Borders, five journalists have been killed in Somalia this year, four in Syria - including Colvin and Ochlik - two each in Bangladesh, Brazil and India, and one each in Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand.


Andrei Netto, a correspondent for Brazilian daily O Estado de Sao Paulo who was abducted in Libya last year, said it was important to cover high-profile conflict such as the Arab uprisings. However, more focus should be given to helping journalists in countries which call themselves democratic.


"We have to protect journalists in democratic countries first of all. There are tens of countries which are democratic and do not respect the law as they should do," he said at a UN event on press freedom organised by France and Greece.


Reporters Without Borders said that more than 280 journalists and bloggers had been imprisoned this year, including 32 in Eritrea, 30 in China and 27 in Iran and 14 in Syria. Five have been detained in Azerbaijan, which is the UN Security Council president for May.


Ban and press freedom groups have sought to stress the role of the media, and particularly the new social media, in covering the uprisings in Libya, Egypt and Syria over the past 18 months.


"Those new voices and new modes of communication have helped millions of people gain, for the first time, the chance at democracy and opportunities that had been denied to them for so long," Ban said.


The Freedom House rights group said the Middle East and North Africa experienced "dramatic if precarious gains" in press freedom last year after the uprisings. But it added that Bahrain and Syria launched "harsh media crackdowns" as part of government crackdowns on uprisings.


The group said that China, Russia and Iran have kept a tight grip on the media by detaining critics and shutting down media outlets