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Alert

Car bomb explodes outside Tamaulipas Televisa offices

(CEPET/IFEX) - On 27 August 2010 a car bomb exploded outside the offices of Televisa in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, causing damage to the facilities and the interruption, for a few hours, of the station's local signal. This is the third attack against Televisa in less than a month.

According to information from the Tamaulipas Prosecutor's Office, the explosion took place at 12:26 a.m. in front of the offices in the Pedro Sosa district, where the local canal 26 channel is broadcast. The car used in the attack was a Chevrolet Corsica with a Texas license plate.

The explosion caused an electricity outage, which interrupted the Televisa broadcast as well as that of Multimedios's Canal 7 channel, whose offices are located a few streets away. Federal police, Mexican Army officers, and experts from the State Attorney's Office worked together on preliminary investigations.

This attack took place only days after 72 Central and South American migrants were killed by drug traffickers in the same region. That incident, according to journalists consulted by CEPET, was not reported by the majority of media outlets in Ciudad Victoria. Televisa was one of the few that did broadcast information on the massacre.

On 27 August, the Office of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression released a statement condemning the attack on Televisa and expressing concern over the escalating violence against media outlets in Mexico.

This most recent attack against Televisa comes after others on 14 and 15 August and 30 July, when the outlet's offices in the cities of Matamoros, Monterrery and Nuevo Laredo were similarly the targets of explosive attacks.