Mexico's president mentioned Thursday that the killing of a reporter within the northern border state of Tamaulipas - the twelfth to date this 12 months in Mexico - could also be linked to native politics.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned federal prosecutors have taken over the investigation of the killing of reporter Antonio de la Cruz as a crime in opposition to freedom of expression.
De la Cruz's daughter was critically wounded within the assault Wednesday within the Tamaulipas state capital and was preventing for her life at an area hospital.
On Thursday, one of many reporter's colleagues mentioned De la Cruz had been requested, apparently by state authorities, to take away a few of his tweets.
"On Twitter, Antonio criticized the state authorities lots and criticized the federal government," mentioned fellow reporter Carlos Manuel Juárez. "He even instructed me at one level that that they had requested him to take down some essential tweets that he put up."
Juárez described the worry that reporters in Tamaulipas really feel after the killing. The state has lengthy been dominated by drug cartels.
"It is rather harmful to not know the place the assault got here from, and our colleagues really feel very uncovered. We do not know whether it is merely a political matter," Juárez mentioned on the president's morning press briefing.
López Obrador mentioned "the choice to take over the case (by federal prosecutors) was made as a result of it grew to become identified that there had been criticism of native authorities."
De la Cruz, 47, was a reporter for the native newspaper Expreso for nearly three many years.
The newspaper issued a print version Thursday in black, with De la Cruz's picture and the phrase "Justice!" on the entrance web page.
"That is clearly an assault on freedom of expression," mentioned Expreso's director, Miguel Domínguez.
"We stay in a state the place there was a wave of violence for greater than a decade, and that has additionally affected the press," Domínguez mentioned. "Sadly, we've got needed to change into used to working in these situations and take further precautions, and think about rigorously whether or not we're going to publish one thing or not."
Nearly all of Tamaulipas' latest governors have confronted accusations of corruption, starting from cash laundering to aiding drug cartels.
De la Cruz's loss of life dropped at 12 the variety of journalists killed this 12 months within the nation, the deadliest for the Mexican press and the deadliest for any nation exterior a conflict zone.
De la Cruz was shot in a automobile in entrance of his home in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital, by a person on a bike. His daughter was within the car with him and was wounded.
Expreso covers all types of reports within the metropolis, together with safety points. De la Cruz reported on rural and social matters corresponding to water shortages.
He additionally coated the Residents Motion political get together and its native deputy, Gustavo Cardenas Gutiérrez, who condemned the killing.
Expreso has been focused over time. In 2012, one of many worst years of drug cartel violence, a automobile bomb exploded in entrance of the newspaper's constructing. In 2018, a cooler with a human head inside was left on the newspaper, with a warning to not report on violence within the metropolis.
Different Mexican journalists killed in 2022
Final month, two colleagues at a information web site had been shot to loss of life within the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. The Veracruz State Prosecutor's Workplace mentioned it was investigating the killings of Yessenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera, the director and a reporter, respectively, of the web information web site El Veraz in Cosoleacaque.
In March, prosecutors within the western state of Michoacan mentioned reporter Armando Linares was shot to loss of life at a house within the city of Zitacuaro. His killing got here six weeks after the slaying of a colleague, Roberto Toledo, from the identical outlet, Monitor Michoacan. It was Linares who introduced Toledo's loss of life Jan. 31 in a video posted to social media.
In early March, gunmen killed Juan Carlos Muñiz, who coated crime for the web information web site Testigo Minero within the state of Zacatecas.
Jorge Camero, the director of a web-based information web site who was till not too long ago a municipal employee within the northern state of Sonora, was killed in late February.
In early February, Heber López, director of the web information web site Noticias Internet, was shot to loss of life within the southern state of Oaxaca.
Reporter Lourdes Maldonado López was discovered shot to loss of life inside her automobile in Tijuana on Jan. 23. In a information convention in 2019, Maldonado Lopez instructed Mexico's president she feared for her life.
Reporter José Luis Gamboa was killed within the Gulf coast state of Veracruz on Jan. 10.
Crime photographer Margarito Martínez was gunned down exterior his Tijuana house on Jan. 17. Guillermo Arias, whose images chronicle life and loss of life within the streets of Tijuana, labored with Martinez for a few years.
He recalled the painful expertise of masking the homicide of his buddy and fellow journalist.
"His daughter arrived and requested me to not photograph her dad's physique," Arias instructed CBS Information.