Daily Times

The director of western Mexico news outlet Monitor Michoacan was murdered on Tuesday, meaning the toll of such homicides has already surpassed last year’s figure in the first two and a half months of 2022.

It was the eighth murder of a journalist in Mexico this year, one more than the total for 2021, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Article 19.

In a statement, the Michoacan prosecutor’s office said Armando Linares was murdered on Tuesday “afternoon in a private home.”

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for members of the press.According to Reporters Without Borders, some 150 journalists have been slain in Mexico since 2000.Linares’s murder came just six weeks after one of his colleagues at the Monitor Michoacan, Roberto Toledo, was also killed.After Toledo’s death on January 31, Linares denounced threats against him and his team for having exposed corruption.”We are not armed, we do not bring weapons. Our only defense is a pen, a pencil,” Linares said in a video.

Even so, Linares was not provided with any security.The other journalists killed this year were Juan Carlos Muniz, Heber Lopez, Lourdes Maldonado, Margarito Martinez, Jose Luis Gamboa and Jorge Luis Camero.”The nightmare continues for the press in Mexico,” said RSF on Twitter, demanding an “exemplary investigation” by authorities.

In early March, the European Parliament approved a resolution demanding that Mexican authorities “take all the necessary steps to ensure the protection and the creation of a safe environment for journalists and human rights defenders.”

That elicited a furious response from Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who accused the European Parliament of supporting his “corrupt” opponents in attempting to stage a “coup.”