Oaxaca Journo Probing Brad Will's Murder Wounded After Death Threats

[GeorgeGist]

Source: Editor and Publisher

CHICAGO A Mexican newspaper reporter who was investigating the murder of U.S. video journalist Brad Will during last fall's street clashes in Oaxaca was shot twice outside his home, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported Thursday.

CPJ said the reporter for the Oaxaca-based daily Tiempo, Misael Sanchez Sarmiento, was wounded in the jaw and leg in the attack Tuesday. He was in stable condition Wednesday after surgery, the New York City-based organization said.

Sanchez heads Tiempo's investigative team, and had received death threats last November after reporting on the slaying of U.S. journalist Bradley Will, a documentary filmmaker, and reporter for the Web site Indymedia.

Tiempo Director Wenceslao Aorve told CPJ that he did not know the motive of Tuesday's attack, but believed it was related to Sanchez's journalistic work.

Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003599068

[Judi Lynn]

1. This is ugly. Surely is good to hear he survived this attempt.

He undoubtedly knows it was deliberate, and it was meant to kill him. Just found how many others have been killed connected to this, as well:

~snip~
The conflict began last June when authorities used tear gas to break up a demonstration by striking teachers. That prompted leftist activists to take to the streets in a bid to oust Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Media outlets were targeted by both sides in the ensuing unrest, and several journalists were beaten and harassed while covering the violence. The conflict peaked with Will’s murder in October.

Since 2000, six journalists have been killed in direct reprisal for their work in Mexico, and CPJ is investigating the circumstances surrounding the slayings of 12 others. In addition, five journalists have disappeared since 2005, three of them this year.

On May 9, a CPJ delegation met with Arturo Sarukhan Casamitjana, the Mexican ambassador to the United States. The delegation called on Mexico’s federal government to take concrete steps to protect press freedom and prosecute those responsible for crimes against the press.
(snip/)

http://www.cpj.org/news/2007/americas/mexico13jun07na.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Looks as if they believe the story won't go away until the journalists who reported it are gone, themselves.

This should embolden some organization to go for broke on this story, to really get it all out in the open, run down everyone connected to all the violence against the dissenters and to the press people there to record it.