Mexican news media protest photographer's killing

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-17 18:16

ACAPULCO, Mexico -- Mexican journalists demanded an investigation Monday into the death of a crime photographer gunned down while riding a motorcycle to an assignment.

Mexico's Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, left, speaks during a press conference in Mexico City, Monday, Feb. 16, 2009. Garcia Luna said that about 60 percent of the country's violence is concentrated in three northern cities: Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Culiacan. [Agencies]

Photographer Jean Paul Ibarra and reporter Yenny Marchan were on their way to the morgue in the southern city of Iguala when gunmen on another motorcycle came alongside and opened fire, according to the Guerrero state police.

Marchan received two bullet wounds but survived; Ibarra was killed.

Ibarra, 33, covered crime for the newspaper El Correo de Iguala, while Marchan works for the paper Diaro 21. Police named no suspects or possible motive for Friday's attack.

The National Union of Reporters sent a letter to state Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca urging "an exhaustive investigation." The union also demanded "that the state government guarantee the security of reporters, especially those that cover crime."

The Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders deplored the shooting as "another example of the environment of extreme violence in some parts of the country."

As crime and drug violence surges, Mexico has become one of the deadliest places in the world to be a journalist. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 24 reporters have been killed because of their work since 2000.

Ibarra's killing came on the eve of a particularly violent weekend in Mexico.

On Saturday night, gunmen burst into a restaurant in western Mexico, killing seven people and wounding five. The Jalisco state police said the attackers may have been targeting rival drug gang members, noting that one of the dead was a suspected marijuana dealer.

However, the wounded included three children, ages 14, 11 and 2.

In southern Tabasco state Saturday, gunmen killed a state police officer and 10 members of his family, including five children. And in Mexico City, authorities found the bodies of two decapitated women.

The violence has also included a rising number of extortion attempts, including efforts by organized crime gangs to make companies pay to remain in business.

Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna told a meeting of state officials Monday that extortion complaints rose to about 50,000 in 2008, from about 50 to 60 per year in the early part of the decade.

He said federal and state authorities are working on a joint approach to confront the trend.

Since 2006, President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops throughout the country to combat the drug cartels. Despite those efforts, drug violence claimed more than 6,000 lives in Mexico last year.

Some citizens and human rights groups have alleged abuse by the soldiers: About 20 women briefly blocked traffic at a downtown intersection in the northern city of Monterrey on Monday to protest what they claimed were instances of soldiers beating civilians and carrying out illegal searches of private property.

The state's governor claimed that drug cartels were behind similar traffic-snarling protests last week.

Though Monday's demonstrators were all women and did not cover their faces with T-shirts or bandannas as the previous protesters had, police said the protests could be linked.