Concerns regarding the safety of journalists in Mexico have reignited following the killing of two Mexican journalists within a span of 24 hours between October 29^th and October 30^th. These killings mark the 4^th and 5^th this year for journalists in the country.

 Mauricio Cruz Solís, a general reporter and news anchor for Radiorama Michoacán, was shot on the street in the city of Uruapan, a city in the state of Michoacán, minutes after interviewing the city’s mayor. While Cruz did report on issues such as politics and security, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that there were no known threats against him.  

Patricia Ramírez González, also known as Paty Bunbury, was shot in the afternoon of Oct. 30^th in an eatery she owned within the state capital of Colima. Ramírez worked as an entertainment reporter for the privately owned newspaper Hechos. 

Mexico’s Pacific Coast, which includes the states of Michoacán and Colima, have experienced an onslaught of violence in recent years. Other Pacific Coast states including Guerrero—Michoacán’s neighboring state—and Oaxaca have consistently been in the top 5 states in the nation for reported numbers of killed and disappeared journalist. 

The killing of journalists is not a new problem in Mexico. Since the turn of the century, 163 Mexican journalists have been killed. That number reached a peak in 2022, with 13 reporters killed in Mexico alone out of the 67 reported globally by the CPJ. This left Mexico ranking 179^th out of 180 countries when it came to security, only beating out Myanmar. On average, there was an attack against a journalist or media house every 13 hours. 

The deaths of Cruz and Ramirez mark the first during the administration Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum who took office in early October. Prior to her election, Sheinbaum pledged to defend journalists and work towards protecting their safety and freedom in a signed statement with Reporters Without Borders. 

One area of particular concern to groups like CPJ and Amnesty International has been the repeated instances of violence against journalists under state protection. The two organizations released a joint report in March that calls for better enforcement and reformation of the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, the system used to assign state protection to journalists who are under threat. 

Earlier this year in the central state of Guanajuato, a reporter under protection of the Mechanism, Alejandro Martínez Noguez, was killed while in the car with his bodyguards. Martínez, who went by the nickname “El Hijo del Llanero Solitito”, frequently covered the violent turf wars and crime happening in Celaya, Guanajuato. This instance reflects what was found in a jointly penned report by the CRJ and Amnesty International which found that the Mechanism routinely failed to take adequate interventions to protect assigned journalists.

Unlike Martínez, the majority of journalists under the protection of the Mechanism do not receive a bodyguard, but a panic button and/or phone number to call in the case of an emergency. Critics have pointed out that authorities are often slow to respond to calls in instances when the panic button is used.  

According to the report, one reporter, Rubén Pat Cauich, told CPJ just week prior to being killed in 2018 that he thought his life was in imminent danger. However, those working with the Mechanism did not comprehend the urgency of the situation, and Pat’s concerns were not addressed despite being enrolled in the Mechanism. 82% of the journalists surveyed by the CPJ and Amnesty International reported that they experienced security issues after receiving some kind of protection. Oftentimes, these issues included cyberattacks and threats to friends and family. 

All of these cases help to outline the ongoing concerns for the human rights of journalists in Mexico. They face large amounts of violence for the reporting they do on a variety of issues, not simply those on gang violence. CPJ and Amnesty International calculated that of the attacks recorded between 2012 and 2023, 43% was likely to have been committed by public officials. This is compared to only 33% likely to have been committed by non-state actors including, but not limited to, gangs and cartels.  

Concerned journalists and advocates around the world have been calling for not only more accountability of the causes leading to the killing of journalists and other forms of violence against them, but also for reform of how they are protected. By working to build a system that is responsive to journalists and the risks that they face, advocates hope that journalism in Mexico can thrive without fear of retaliation.