Mexican media worker killed after outlet reported death threats

MEXICO CITY, Mexico – A Mexican media worker was killed on Monday, January 31, in the violent western state of Michoacan, one of his employers said, the latest killing in a spate of deadly attacks that have sparked protests in the Latin American nation.

Roberto Toledo’s death follows the killings of three journalists in Mexico earlier in January. The murder of Lourdes Maldonado in Tijuana on Jan. 23 sparked a wave of protests by journalists across the country.

Toledo, who had worked with news website Monitor Michoacan for three years, was killed by multiple gunmen, the outlet’s director Armando Linares said in a Facebook Live video.

Linares said the outlet had been receiving threats, which it reported to local authorities, as a result of its sustained reporting on corruption in local government.

“Today those threats came to fruition,” he said.

Presidential spokesperson Jesus Ramirez condemned Toledo’s death on Twitter, originally describing him as a journalist. Ramirez later sent another tweet saying that Toledo was not a journalist, and worked for a law firm.

Toledo was shot outside a legal practice after helping Monitor Michoacan’s deputy director, lawyer Joel Vera, film a regular video column, said Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Hootsen said the CPJ considered Toledo a media worker because of his regular work on the video column.

Human rights group Article 19 said it was investigating the case. According to the organization, some 145 journalists have been killed in Mexico from 2000 to 2021, making the country one of the deadliest in the world for journalists. – Rappler.com