“How many more of us will have to die before the Mexican state takes action?”, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), together with more than 40 national media outlets, asked this Wednesday while demanding action from authorities in response to the murders of journalists in Mexico.
As part of a joint initiative, media outlets from different regions of the country simultaneously published an alert message accompanied by a list of the names of journalists murdered during the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, which began on October 1, 2024.
According to RSF, 17 journalists have been murdered since the beginning of the current administration, while during the first seven months of 2026, the cases included in its records represent an average of nearly one journalist murdered each month.
The organization stated that the killings are primarily attributed to organized crime groups and that most remain unpunished. It therefore called for a coordinated response among federal, state and municipal authorities, as well as prosecutors’ offices and the Judiciary.
RSF warns about fear and self-censorship
The director of RSF’s Latin America office, Artur Romeu, said that Mexico cannot become accustomed to counting murdered journalists, arguing that every killing has consequences that extend beyond the victim and their family members.
The organization maintained that violence against journalists also affects the public’s right to receive information, particularly in communities where local journalism is one of the main ways residents learn about matters of public interest.
RSF warned that threats and killings generate fear and self-censorship among journalists, a situation that particularly affects local journalists and can leave entire communities without information about events of importance to their residents.
The warning comes after Sheinbaum assumed the presidency in October 2024 with commitments to strengthen journalist protection and guarantee safe conditions for practicing the profession.
They call for a national emergency plan to protect journalists
Given the continued killings, RSF called on the Mexican government to implement a national emergency plan capable of coordinating the different levels of government and strengthening both protection measures and investigations into attacks against journalists.
The organization also demanded that authorities not limit themselves to identifying those who physically carry out the killings, but also investigate and prosecute the intellectual authors of the crimes.
It also proposed establishing mechanisms to evaluate existing deficiencies in prevention, protection and investigation, with the goal of determining why the attacks continue and preventing similar incidents from happening again.
The demand from RSF and the participating media outlets once again places violence against journalists at the center of the security debate in Mexico, particularly because of the continued killings and the lack of judicial results which, according to the organization, keeps impunity as one of the main obstacles to stopping attacks against the press.
Source: infobae
