Juan Carlos Muñiz, who covered crime for Testigo Minero, killed in Fresnillo as website says ‘this social breakdown …is out of control’
A journalist has been killed in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, becoming the seventh killed in the country so far this year.
Juan Carlos Muñiz, who covered crime for the online news site Testigo Minero in Fresnillo, was killed on Friday, according to the state governor David Monreal.
Continue reading...Most of 358 victims worked on land, environmental and indigenous rights, with more killed in Mexico, India and among Afghan women
A Colombian conservationist who saved a rare species of parrot from extinction, a young feminist activist in Afghanistan, and two poets in Myanmar who used words to protest against the military coup were among 358 human rights defenders murdered in 35 countries last year, analysis has found.
The environmentalist Gonzalo Cardona Molina, 55; Frozan Safi, a 29-year-old Afghan economics lecturer; and K Za Win and Khet Thi, two of several poets to be killed, were among those targeted because of their “peaceful and powerful” work, according to a global analysis of threats and attacks faced by human rights activists compiled by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the Human Rights Defenders Memorial.
Continue reading...Prosecutors say they cannot determine how many were killed because attackers cleaned up the scene and removed any bodies
Mexicans have been left wondering what happened to about a dozen men who disappeared after they were seen lined up against a wall by drug cartel gunmen.
In a video apparently filmed by a resident of the town San José de Gracia in the western state of Michoacán and posted on social media, bursts of gunfire broke out and smoke covered the scene.
Continue reading...Fishermen in Mexico are using the ike jime method, which aims to reduce fish trauma, to improve the quality of catches and help sustainability
Every morning, hundreds of small white fishing boats dot the dark blue waters of Veracruz’s coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the crews, many of whose families have been fishing for generations, employ traditional methods – using nets to catch large numbers of fish, which then slowly asphyxiate once out of the water.
But a few of the fishermen are doing something different, using a technique that emerged in Japan several centuries ago. It is a method for slaughtering fish that emulates a process called ike jime, which is based on a simple scientific principle: the less trauma the fish experiences, the longer the flesh remains fresh.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico
Continue reading...Heber López, director of the online news site Noticias Web, was killed in the port city of Salina Cruz in Oaxaca state
A journalist has been shot dead in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, the fifth killed in the country this year, state authorities said.
Heber López, director of the online news site Noticias Web, was killed leaving a recording studio in the port city of Salina Cruz, said an official with the Oaxaca state security agency, who requested anonymity.
Continue reading...Roberto Toledo was shot dead by three gunmen in a carpark in Zitácuaro, where he reported for a local news outlet
Journalists in Mexico have responded with fury and despair at the murder of a fourth reporter in the country this year, cementing its reputation as the world’s most murderous country for media workers.
Roberto Toledo was shot dead by three gunmen on Monday afternoon in a carpark in the city of Zitácuaro, where he reported for a local news outlet, Monitor Michoacán. Zitácuaro is best known for the nearby monarch butterfly reserves, but the region is rife with violence as drug cartels and criminal groups fight to control illegal logging.
Continue reading...Shooting of pair on Caribbean coast allegedly linked to ‘transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in’
The killing of two Canadians at a resort on Mexico’s Caribbean coast last week was motivated by debts between international gangs apparently dedicated to drug and weapons trafficking, according to a senior Mexican prosecutor.
“The investigations indicate that this attack was motivated by debts that arose from transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in,” said Oscar Montes, the chief prosecutor of the Quintana Roo state, on Tuesday. “The information [is] that they were involved in weapons and drug trafficking, among other crimes.”
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Costa Rica
Continue reading...Gunman shoots three Canadians in Playa del Carmen, with foreigners again caught up in drug cartel violence
Three Canadian visitors have been shot by a lone gunman in their hotel in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen – in an attack security officials are calling targeted and alleging involved individuals with criminal records.
One of the tourists died of their injuries while being transported to hospital following the incident on Friday, according to the Quintana Roo state public security secretary, Lucio Hernández Gutiérrez, who confirmed the nationality of the victims.
Continue reading...Care International report highlights ‘deep injustice’ neglected by world’s media, as extreme weather along with Covid wipes out decades of progress
From Afghanistan to Ethiopia, about 235 million people worldwide needed assistance in 2021. But while some crises received global attention, others are lesser known.
Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention in online articles in five languages around the world in 2021, despite each having at least 1 million people affected by conflict or climate disasters.
Continue reading...China locks down city of Anyang, bringing total under stay-at-home orders to 20m; Canada will give eligible people a fourth dose ‘if necessary’
Five million residents in the central Chinese city of Anyang have started home confinement today in a new lockdown to curb the spread of Omicron variant, according to state media and as reported by Agence France-Presse.
Two Omicron cases were detected in the city in Henan province, prompting authorities to announce a lockdown late Monday, issuing a notice ordering residents not to leave their homes or drive cars on the roads, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong
Continue reading...Zacatecas governor says bodies of people left in front of palace near Christmas tree showed apparent signs of beating and bruising
An SUV filled with 10 bodies was left outside the office of a Mexican state governor in a public square lit up with holiday decorations, officials said on Thursday.
The bodies were crammed into a Mazda SUV left before dawn near a Christmas tree in the main plaza of the state capital of Zacatecas.
Continue reading...Justin Trudeau calls revellers who partied onboard flight ‘idiots’ as three airlines refuse to fly them home
A group of passengers who filmed themselves partying without masks onboard a chartered flight from Montreal to Mexico face being stranded after three airlines refused to fly them home to Canada.
Sunwing Airlines cancelled the return charter flight from Cancún that had been scheduled for Wednesday and Air Transat and Air Canada also both said they would refuse to carry the passengers.
Continue reading...The ‘big, beautiful wall’ has kept US citizens away from the no man’s land it created – and in effect ceded territory to Mexico
Several miles south of the small town of San Juan, Texas, beyond acres of onion fields, orange groves and other cash crops sits a historic cemetery and the site of the beginning of a slow decay of American soil.
I hadn’t been to this area for more than a year because of the pandemic, and I was startled at how different this remote part of Texas had become. The most obvious change is the steel 18ft-high bollard fencing, among the last vestiges of Donald Trump’s glorious border wall with Mexico.
Continue reading...Mahé Elipe captures the visceral anger as International Women’s Day protests turned into a violent clash with police
On 8 March 2021, women across the world took part in protests to mark International Women’s Day. In Mexico, there is an added poignancy to the annual event, as at least 10 women are murdered in the country each day; in 2021 the date was was marred by additional violence.
In the runup to the day fences were erected around the national palace in Mexico City’s main square, where thousands of women were due to gather.
Continue reading...Declared extinct in the wild in 2003, species has been reintroduced to its native river after being bred in Chester
A “charismatic little fish” declared extinct in the wild has been reintroduced to its native Mexico after being bred in an aquarium at Chester zoo.
The tequila fish (Zoogoneticus tequila), which grows to no bigger than 70mm long, disappeared from the wild in 2003 owing to the introduction of invasive, exotic fish species and water pollution.
Continue reading...Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters
Continue reading...Two dozen conspirators forced workers to pay fees for travel and housing while forcing them to work for little to no pay
In June, a farm worker from Mexico, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, was transported through a trafficking network from Monterey to work on farms in Georgia.
They paid the traffickers 20,000 pesos, about $950, loaned from their mother, taking frequent trips back and forth to Monterey, before being told it was safe to leave. Then they were finally transported across the border.
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