Fourth journalist killed in Mexico in a month

His death was confirmed by the director of Monitor Michoacán, Armando Linares, in a video shared on social media.

“One of our colleagues lost his life because three people came and shot him in a vile way, in a cowardly way,” said Linares in the video, clearly distraught. “To our colleague’s family I say that we are not going to leave things like this and that we are going to take them to their last consequences.”

Linares said employees at Monitor Michoacán had been the subject of threats via WhatsApp and Messenger.

“We are not armed, we don’t carry weapons. Our only means of defense are a pen, a pencil, a notebook,” he said.

Mexico’s government spokesperson, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, initially condemned the killing on Twitter, saying “we will work together with the state and municipal government to clarify the case. We will not allow impunity. We defend freedom of expression and the right to information.” A subsequent tweet from his account said that Roberto Toledo worked as an assistant in a law firm, not as a journalist.

In an interview with Mexico’s Milenio, the mayor of Zitácuaro, Antonio Orihuela, also condemned the attack, but said that Toledo wasn’t a journalist.

Monitor Michoacán’s director said that Toledo covered the state government and produced video stories for the web. “He kept a low profile, given the threats we had received,” he said in an interview with Milenio.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the attack on social media and urged Mexican authorities to investigate. Mexico ranked as the world’s deadliest country for journalists in 2020, according to a report by CPJ.

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