A newspaper editor's murder has brought the total of journalists killed in Mexico in the space of a month to three. Jorge Ochoa Martínez, the editor of the local daily El sol de la Costa and the weekly El Oportuno, was shot dead in Ayutla de los Libres, in the southern state of Guerrero, on 29 January. He was 55.
According to the police, Ochoa was shot several times with 38 calibre firearm. The authorities have not so far suggested any motive but his family told Reporters Without Borders they did not rule out the possibility that he was killed in connection with his work. The press freedom organisation therefore urges the authority to actively explore this hypothesis.
The family said it received several calls on the night of 29 January, including one from the police, saying Ochoa had been shot. One his sons told Reporters Without Borders: “I could not believe it. I thought it was a joke. I called my father several times but he did not pick up. Then I went to Ayutla and found his body.”
Although Ochoa's death confirms that Mexico continues to be the hemisphere's most dangerous country for the media, the authorities are failing to respond adequately to a wave of threats against media personnel by presumed drug traffickers and, in some cases, by local officials.
Juan Aparicio, the editor of El Observador, a magazine based in the southern state of Chiapas, was threatened by a member of the state's border police, Pedro León Toro Peña, on 20 January while covering a raid on a house where a kidnapping had taken place.
Armando Suárez, a reporter for Puerto Viejo, a magazine based in La Paz, in the northwestern state of Baja California, was threatened by Loreto mayor Yuan Yee Cunningham and was hit by local officials on 21 January.
The torching of a car outside the studios of a radio station in Los Mochis, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, on 27 January was accompanied by a message that read: “This will happen to journalists. They are going to be burned. With best wishes, La Mochomera.”
A total of 61 journalists have been murdered since 2000 and nine others have gone missing since 2003 in Mexico, which was ranked 137th out of 175 countries in the 2009 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.
The Supreme Court on 19 January sent back to a Philadelphia appeal court the case of journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, aged 55, a one-time Black Panther, sentenced to death in dubious circumstances in 1982.
The country's court of highest jurisdiction ordered the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to revisit its March 2008 ruling that a new jury should decide on the penalty handed down to the radio journalist. It said the review should be made “in the light” of one of its recent rulings in another capital case (Sispak/Ohio). Now the court must again decide whether Abu-Jamal will live or die.
The Supreme Court previously - in October 2008 and in April 2009 - rejected calls for a new trial from Abu-Jamal's lawyer, Robert R. Bryan, on the basis of racism in jury selection, judicial bias, and prosecutorial fraud. The 19 January ruling unfortunately gives weight to Bryan's claim that his client is being hounded. The Supreme Court is at the same time making the appeal court responsible for ordering the journalist's execution.
It is already very serious that Mumia Abu-Jamal suffered an unfair trial that left real doubt about his guilt at the time of his conviction. Now the fact that he cannot possibly escape from his condition as a man under sentence of death amounts to a terrible setback for justice. The death penalty is in itself unworthy of a constitutional state. Sign the petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Mumia...
Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther militant who became a radio journalist in the 1970s, was sentenced to death for the murder in Philadelphia of a police officer, Daniel Faulkner, on 9 December 1981. Before his arrest he had been known as the “voice of the voiceless”, as a result of his articles condemning government abuses and corruption. Abu-Jamal wrote an article for Reporters Without Borders "Journalism in Hell" in which he described his experience behind bars. We commit ourselves to allowing him to speak on our website.
“If he was not black they would not be trying to kill him as vigorously as is occurring today. If Mumia was not a journalist, perhaps even more so, there would not be so much passion against him”, Robert R. Bryan said in an interview with our organisation.
For further information and to offer support for Mumia Abu-Jamal, contact: Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan 2088 Union Street, Suite 4, San Francisco, CA 94123-4117 http://www.MumiaLegalDefense.org
California, USA - This is not new but it we can certainly see where this is heading to. Soon all citizens of the world (as Obama says it) will get a new bracelet when going a on a airplane.
California, USA - From today or actually yesterday people coming from Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen will f
California, USA - We now have a enough evidence to prove without a doubt that the December attack of the Nigerian bomber on the Detroit airplane was a setup.
