A journalist murdered Friday night in Quintana Roo had been threatened but was not provided with official protection, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico (OHCHR) revealed.
José Guadalupe Chan Dzib was at a nightclub in Felipe Carrillo Puerto when an armed civilian shot him four times and fled.
Chan contributed to the online publication Playa News Aquí y Ahora and several other digital news outlets as a crime reporter.
On Saturday the OHCHR said in a statement that it had information indicating that Chan had received threats in recent weeks, and had filed reports before authorities.
But no protection measures were adopted.
The statement said there was also information regarding other journalists in the region who had received the same kinds of threats over the past few months, including the director of the media outlet at which Chan worked.
The OHCHR said Chan’s assassination brought the number of slain journalists in 2018 “to at least seven, while another one has been missing [since January], making this year one of the most tragic in the history of journalism in Mexico.”
The OHCHR asked that counseling be provided to Chan’s relatives, and that protection measures be put in place for his colleagues, who could be at risk.
The journalists killed this year are Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez on January 13 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; Pamela Montenegro del Real, on February 5 in Acapulco, Guerrero; Leobardo Vázquez Atzin, on March 21 in Gutiérrez Zamora, Veracruz; Juan Carlos Huerta Gutiérrez, on May 15 in Villahermosa, Tabasco; Héctor González, on May 29 in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas; and María del Sol Cruz Jarquín, on June 2 in Juchitán, Oaxaca.
Agustín Silva disappeared on January 21 in Matías Romero, Oaxaca.
At least 12 journalists were murdered in 2017.
Source: El Universal (sp)
