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Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
Thu Jul 7, 2016, 05:27 PM Jul 2016

Disastrous toll – 21 Latin American journalists killed in past six months

Disastrous toll – 21 Latin American journalists killed in past six months
July 5, 2016

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled to have to report that no fewer than 21 journalists were killed in the first six months of 2016 in Latin America, 14 of them in just two countries – Mexico and Guatemala.


This disastrous toll is attributable in part to flawed or non-existent protective mechanisms but above all to the alarming level violence, corruption and impunity in most of the region’s countries – a region that is now one of the world’s most dangerous for media personnel.

As in 2015, Mexico continues to register the biggest death toll, with nine journalists murdered in the first half of 2016. It is followed by Guatemala with five, Honduras with three, Brazil with two and Venezuela and El Salvador with one. None of these countries is officially at war, but each of them suffers from a significant degree of structural violence linked to ubiquitous armed groups that include Mexico’s cartels and Central America’s “maras.”

The motive of most of these deaths is still unknown*. When the police investigate them, the investigations soon get bogged down and are obstructed by corrupt officials. Impunity is, more than ever, at the centre of a vicious circle of violence against media personnel and journalism’s chronic depreciation.

More:
https://rsf.org/en/news/disastrous-toll-21-latin-american-journalists-killed-past-six-months

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