Journalist killed in Mexico, 12th case in 2009

[demoleft]

Source: ap

MEXICO CITY – A journalist was gunned down this week as he left a holiday party in the Mexican Caribbean resort town of Tulum, human rights officials and an international media group said Friday, bringing to 12 the number of reporters killed this year in the country.

Alberto Velazquez of the newspaper Expresiones de Tulum was killed on Tuesday.

Velazquez had written articles critical of local officials, and his paper had received threats, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In a statement, the group quoted colleagues as saying Velazquez was shot by a gunman on a motorcycle, and they believed it was related to his reporting.

Velazquez founded the paper in June and worked as a lawyer, according to the Civic Association of Journalists of the Riviera Maya, a local press group. It said that Velazquez, as he was dying, reportedly accused allies of the mayor of Tulum of being responsible for his death.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091225/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_journalist_killings

---

rsf on the same:

Mexico - Slain journalist leaves wife about to give birth and 5-year-old son
Reporters Without Borders was saddened to learn today that José Alberto Velásquez López, a journalist and lawyer based in Tulum, in the eastern state of Quintana Roo, died on the night of 22 December after being shot as he drove home. The editor of the Diario Express de Tulum newspaper and a contributor to Canal 30, a local TV station, Velásquez left a wife who is about to give birth and a five-year-old son.

“Yet another Mexican journalist has been gunned down, showing that there is never any truce in Mexico, not even for holidays,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We offer our condolences to the Velásquez family and we urge the authorities to protect his wife and son, who are now in a very vulnerable situation.”

Velásquez was driving home when two men on a motorcycle shot him in the chest as they passed him. He managed to carry out driving for a while but then lost control of his car and hit another vehicle. He died while being rushed to a nearby hospital by Red Cross doctors.

The authorities said prosecutors were investigating the possibility that the motive was linked to his work as a lawyer or that the murder was a crime of passion. Colleagues dismissed the crime of passion theory and suggested the murder may been carried out by supporters of Marciano Dzul, a leading local member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who had often been criticised by Velásquez.

source: rsf, http://www.rsf.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=35468

[TACT]

1. conspiracy vs. coincidence

When I read a story like this I always wonder to where all the conspiracy vs. coincidence debaters have disappeared.

[a la izquierda]

2. What are you talking about?

I'm not sure I follow your line of thinking.

[UpInArms]

4. someone not able to understand

cause and effect

my ignore list grows apace these days - it's easier than it used to be for me to just hit that function button when yet another one comes in.

[a la izquierda]

6. ha!

i'm wary of folks on any threads regarding Latin America. the misinformation can be astounding, and i've had posts deleted because Mexico is what i study for a living and i don't suffer fools. :)

[UpInArms]

3. are you related to Barry?

:shrug:

[nvme]

5. a nextdoor neighbor

who beats his wife and murders his children. But there aint no cops to call.