Killing of Mexican reporter may be linked to local politics

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s president stated Thursday that the killing of a reporter in the northern border point out of Tamaulipas — the 12th so considerably this calendar year in Mexico — could be linked to nearby politics.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported federal prosecutors have taken over the investigation of the killing of reporter Antonio de la Cruz as a crime towards flexibility of expression.

De la Cruz’s daughter was critically wounded in the assault Wednesday in the Tamaulipas state funds and was preventing for her everyday living at a regional medical center.

On Thursday, one particular of the reporter’s colleagues claimed De la Cruz experienced been requested, seemingly by point out authorities, to get rid of some of his tweets.

“On Twitter, Antonio criticized the point out govt a whole lot and criticized the govt,” said fellow reporter Carlos Manuel Juárez. “He even told me at one particular level that they had questioned him to take down some significant tweets that he set up.”

Juárez explained the worry that reporters in Tamaulipas really feel after the killing. The condition has extended been dominated by drug cartels.

“It is very hazardous not to know where by the attack came from, and our colleagues really feel very exposed. We really don’t know if it is merely a political make a difference,” Juárez stated at the president’s early morning press briefing.

López Obrador stated “the selection to get more than the circumstance (by federal prosecutors) was made mainly because it turned recognised that there had been criticism of local authorities.”

De la Cruz, 47, was a reporter for the local newspaper Expreso for virtually a few decades.

The newspaper issued a print version Thursday in black, with De la Cruz’s photograph and the word “Justice!” on the entrance webpage.

“This is evidently an attack on liberty of expression,” explained Expreso’s director, Miguel Domínguez.

“We reside in a condition wherever there has been a wave of violence for additional than a 10 years, and that has also afflicted the press,” Domínguez explained. “Unfortunately, we have experienced to turn out to be utilised to working in these problems and acquire extra precuations, and consider carefully whether or not we are going to publish some thing or not.”

Virtually all of Tamaulipas’ recent governors have confronted accusations of corruption, ranging from money laundering to aiding drug cartels.

De la Cruz’s demise introduced to 12 the variety of journalists killed this year in the place, the deadliest for the Mexican press and the deadliest for any state exterior a war zone.

De la Cruz was shot in a car or truck in front of his household in Ciudad Victoria, the condition capital, by a male on a motorbike. His daughter was in the motor vehicle with him and was wounded.

Expreso addresses all sorts of information in the metropolis, like security troubles. De la Cruz noted on rural and social topics these as drinking water shortages.

He also protected the Citizens Motion political party and its local deputy, Gustavo Cardenas Gutiérrez, who condemned the killing.

Expreso has been focused in excess of the many years. In 2012, just one of the worst yrs of drug cartel violence, a auto bomb exploded in entrance of the newspaper’s creating. In 2018, a cooler with a human head inside of was left at the newspaper, with a warning not to report on violence in the city.