About IFEX:

News by region:

IFEX Campaigns and Advocacy:

IFEX Email Products:

Opportunities and assistance:

Alert

Special federal prosecutor's office takes on case of two murdered Oaxacan community radio journalists

(ARTICLE 19/CENCOS/IFEX) - The Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Journalists (Fiscalía Especial para la Atención de Delitos cometidos contra Periodistas, FEADP) is looking into the killing of Teresa Bautista and Felícitas Martínez de San Juan Copala, two radio journalists from the Triqui indigenous community in Oaxaca. This welcome development inspires hope that impunity will not prevail in this case, unlike the way it has in the murders of so many other journalists in Mexico.

Despite the delay in the intervention of another PGR body - the Office of the Sub-Procurator for Human Rights Attention to Victims and Community Services (subprocuraduría de Derechos Humanos Atención a Víctimas y Servicios a la Comunidad) - in the case the very fact that it has been taken on by a federal justice body is a significant step toward meeting the demands for justice being made by the victim's families, civil organizations and journalists' groups.

Bautista Merino, 24, and Martínez Sánchez, 21, were killed on 7 April 2008 as they were returning to the community of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, when their vehicle was intercepted by a group of hired killers. The two worked for the community radio station "La voz que rompe el silencio" (the voice that breaks the silence) which began broadcasting in January 2008. The station had received telephoned death threats days before the journalists' killing (. . .).

ADD ARTICLE 19 and CENOS call on the authorities to carry out thorough investigations in order to identify and bring to justice both the physical perpetrators and the masterminds of the murders.

Updates the Bautista Merino and Martínez Sánchez case: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/92500