Mexico City, Feb. 1, (dpa/GNA) – A journalist was murdered on Monday in western Mexico, the media outlet for which he worked said, in the fourth such killing in the country in less than a month.
Columnist Roberto Toledo, who worked for the digital outlet Monitor Michoacán, was approached by three people and shot dead in the city of Zitácuaro in western state of Michoacán, outlet director Armando Linares said in a video posted on Facebook.
Linares said that members of the outlet had been receiving death threats for months, which he linked to Monitor Michoacán’s reporting on corruption.
“Exposing corruption of governments, officials and politicians today led to the death of one of our colleagues,” he said.
The Mexican presidency condemned the murder, spokesperson Jesús Ramírez said in a tweet. “We will not allow impunity. Let’s defend freedom of expression and the right to information,” he said, adding that the presidency would work with state and local governments to “clarify the case.”
Mexico was deemed the most dangerous country for journalists in 2021 for the third year in a row by Reporters Without Borders.
According to the group’s annual report, seven journalists were killed in connection with their work in the North American country last year. Afghanistan came second with six killings.
Over the past five years some 50 journalists have been killed in Mexico, though the majority of the cases went unsolved.
Since mid-January, Jose Luis Gamboa, the director of an online news portal, photojournalist Margarito Martinez and Lourdes Maldonado were killed.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has repeatedly publicly denounced journalists as liars.
Nationwide, almost 100 homicides are currently registered per day in Mexico. Much of the violence in the country of around 126 million people is the work of cartels and gangs.
GNA