Freedom of Expression

Press Release R 129/14

PRESS RELEASE

 

R 129/14

 

OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR CONDEMNS MURDERS OF TWO COMMUNICATORS IN MEXICO

 

Washington, D.C., November 3, 2014. – The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemns the murder of journalist Jesús Antonio Gamboa Urías who was disappeared since October 10 and whose body was found on October 22 in Ahome, state of Sinaloa, Mexico. The Office of the Special Rapporteur expresses its concern and urges the Mexican authorities to take urgent action to establish the motive of the crime and to activate all the legal instruments available to identify and punish its perpetrators and masterminds.

 

According to the information received, the journalist’s body was found after the authorities arrested the suspected murderers, who had used Gamboa’s credit card. The suspects informed the authorities of the location of the body. Gamboa Urías was the director of the political magazine Nueva Prensa from which he addressed issues related to corruption and local politics. He was last seen around midnight on October 10 in the business venue one of his siblings.

 

The Office of the Special Rapporteur takes note of the actions taken by the authorities through which they were able to capture people allegedly linked to the murder. However, the Office urges the authorities to thoroughly investigate the hypothesis that this crime could have been associated with the exercise of the victim’s right to freedom of expression.

 

Additionally, the Office of the Special Rapporteur expresses its condemnation over the murder of the Twitter user @Miut3 allegedly by organized crime. The communicator used to report on her Twitter account information related to public safety issues in the municipality of Reynosa, state of Tamaulipas, and collaborated with the website Valor por Tamaulipas. According to the information available, on October 16 a photo of a murdered woman was posted on her Twitter account next to messages that invite her followers to close their accounts and not risk their lives. The Twitter account was suspended.

 

Those messages also pointed out that María del Rosario Fuentes Rubio was the presumed identity of the Twitter user. Rubio Fuentes, a physician, had been reported missing by a family member who said that on October 15 unidentified armed persons intercepted her outside a company in the municipality of Reynosa. The Office of the Special Rapporteur expresses its concern and urges the Mexican authorities to take urgent action to establish the motive of the crime and to activate all the legal instruments available to identify and punish its perpetrators and masterminds.

 

The State reported that the Public Prosecutor of the State of Tamaulipas opened an investigation on the disappearance of Fuentes Rubio.

 

Violence against journalists and online media users in Mexico has been of particular concern to this Office. With these crimes, the number of communicators murdered in Mexico in 2014 has risen to eight. In 2013, this Office reported three murders of journalists.

 

Similarly, the Office of the Special Rapporteur considers it essential to urgently assess whether the mechanisms of change in jurisdiction should be activated so that these cases could be investigated and prosecuted immediately by federal authorities. This Office also considers it fundamental to consolidate the Mechanism to Protect Human Rights Defenders and Journalists [Mecanismo de Protección para Personas Defensoras de Derechos Humanos y Periodistas], and to strengthen the interagency coordination mechanisms between federal authorities and the various levels of government to ensure the proper adoption and implementation of protection measures.

 

Principle 9 of the IACHR Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression states: "[t]he murder, kidnapping, intimidation of and/or threats to social communicators, as well as the material destruction of communications media violate the fundamental rights of individuals and strongly restrict freedom of expression. It is the duty of the state to prevent and investigate such occurrences, to punish their perpetrators and to ensure that victims receive due compensation."

 

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression was created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to encourage the defense of the right to freedom of thought and expression in the hemisphere, given the fundamental role this right plays in consolidating and developing the democratic system.