The assailants, who were wearing shirts identifying them as members of a local politician's election campaign, took a laptop, 2,500 copies of the magazine and US$780.
(CEPET/IFEX) – 24 June 2010 – At least 15 armed men threatened, assaulted and robbed the distribution manager for the magazine “Contralínea Puebla”, Israel Maldonado Flores. The men stole a laptop, 10,000 pesos (approx. US$780) and 2,500 copies of the magazine. The incident took place on 23 June in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla.
According to Maldonado, at around 2:00 p.m. five vehicles arrived at the town square and a group of 15 armed men wearing shirts that said “Moreno Valle”, presumably supporters of the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN), stepped out. Maldonado said the men verbally harassed him about the front-page article about alleged irregularities made by Rafael Moreno Valle, a candidate for the governor of Puebla, when he was the local finance minister.
The men insulted Maldonado, and then several of them beat him and took his money. The other men took the copies of the magazine that Maldonado had with him, as well as a laptop computer than was in his car. Before they escaped, the attackers warned him that if he didn’t leave Izúcar then “they would take matters into their own hands.”
Maldonado, who was with his two daughters at the time, said that one of the attackers had a badge in his car that identified the driver as the “campaign coordinator” for the “Promises for Puebla” political campaign.
Ignacio Juárez Galindo, the director of “Contralínea Puebla”, said that a complaint for theft had been filed with the state attorney general’s office. He also said that there were differing opinions within the PAN about the incident because Moreno Valle’s campaign team called to offer an apology and support for any legal action that the magazine decides to take, but in Juárez’s opinion this was only a move by the campaign team to distance itself from the incident.
Please note this is an abridged translation.