Mexican journalist dies from wounds; 2nd slain in week

Sun, October 31, 2021

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Photojournalist Alfredo Cardoso died in a hospital Sunday two days after being shot in Acapulco, the second Mexican journalist to be killed during the week, a international journalism group said.

Jan Albert Hootsen, Mexico’s representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, reported Cardoso's death, saying he had direct confirmation from Cardoso’s family.

Prosecutors in Acapulco said Friday that Cardoso, who worked for a news portal, had been found sitting on a city street with gunshot wounds and was taken to a hospital. According to the National Union of Press Editors and information from the family relayed by CPJ, Cardoso had been taken from his home earlier Friday by armed men.

On Thursday, reporter Fredy López Arévalo, who contributed to several local, national and foreign media outlets, was shot to death when he arrived at his home in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas state.

During the first three years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration, 47 journalists and 94 human rights defenders have been slain in Mexico, according to data offered in early October by the the undersecretary of human rights, population and migration, Alejandro Encinas.

Mexico is the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere for journalism, according to CPJ, a New York-based press protection group.