Journalists across the country joined coordinated demonstrations to protest the murder of their colleagues.
The protests in Mérida took place in front of Paseo de Montejo’s Monumento a la Patria where journalists held signs reading slogans including “you can’t kill the truth.”
According to the international press organization Journalists Without Borders, for the third year in a row, Mexico remained the most dangerous country in the world for journalists.
Journalists in Mexico are routinely threatened by corrupt political officials and members of organized crime who are not too timid to follow through with their threats.
“The biggest problem we are dealing with here is impunity, politicians and organized crime have all the power, so there is little hope for justice,” said one journalist, Jade Ramírez Cuevas.
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So far this year, three journalists have already been murdered in Mexico, including Lourdes Maldonado, who lost her life Sunday in Tijuana.
Three days prior to her murder, Maldonado had won a legal battle against former Baja California Sur governor, Jaime Bonilla.
In 2019, Maldonado had told President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that she feared for her life.
On Monday, the president said during a press conference that Maldonado’s murder should not be seen through the lens of politics. Shortly after, the district attorney of Baja California said the murder had nothing to do with Maldonado’s work as a journalist.
When confronted with numbers from his own government reflecting an increase in violence against journalists in Mexico under his term, the president responded with his now predictable refrain, “Yo tengo otros datos,” which translates as “I have different information.”
