His Excellency Enrique Peña Nieto

President of Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

4 April 2014

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries, to express our outrage at the attack against Mexican journalist Adrián López Ortiz, director of the newspaper Noroeste in Culiacán, Sinaloa.

According to reports, on 2 April, armed men shot him when he was driving from the local airport to his home coming back from a trip in Mexico City, where he participated to freedom of expression debates with WAN-IFRA and other local civil society organisations.

In the last three years, newspaper Noroeste has reported 60 attacks on its staff, including threatening phone calls, robberies and physical attacks against newspaper sellers. The paper attributes the most recent attacks to its coverage of the arrest in late February to the drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa Cartel. The newspaper is also critical of the state government.

We are seriously concerned at the horrific levels of threats and violence facing journalists and human right defenders in your country. Last month, Balbina Flores, journalist and Mexico correspondent of Reporters Without Borders, received threats after a visit to journalists in the state of Michoacán.

We are deeply concerned about the lack of effective government actions to fight crimes against journalists and ensure freedom of speech in the country. According to recent reports, more than half of the 152 cases received by the Mechanism to Protect Journalists, haven’t been investigated by the government board in charge of determining preventive and protective measures for journalists and human rights defenders at risk. We’re also concerned by the serious failures in the investigation into the recent murder of journalist Gregorio Jiménez in Veracruz.

We respectfully remind you that it is the duty of the state to protect journalists and ensure their ability to work without fear.

We call on you to ensure that investigations into the attacks against Adrián López and other cases of attacks against journalists are immediately carried out and that those responsible are quickly brought to justice.

We ask you to do everything in your power to end the climate of impunity and to ensure freedom of speech in Mexico,

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience,

Sincerely,

Tomas Brunegård

President

World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, WAN-IFRA

Erik Bjerager

President

World Editors Forum

Marcelo Rech

President

WAN-IFRA Latin America Committee