The Mexican journalist Norma Sarabia was shot dead on 11 June 2019 at the entrance of her home in Huimanguillo, in the state of Tabasco. Norma, who was a reporter for the newspaper Tabasco Hoy in Huimanguillo, approximately 65 kilometres west of the state capital Villahermosa, was attacked by two men who arrived at her house on motorbike and, after calling her by her name, shot her several times.

Norma was a reporter for Tabasco HOY for more than 15 years and was also working for other local media outlets. The editorial director of Tabasco HOY, Héctor Tapia, said that several times Norma had expressed fear about her work as a journalist in the Chontalpa area, an area which is controlled by organized criminal gangs that transport drugs and fuel.

“More than once she mentioned her fears about the insecurity in Huimanguillo and the threats she had received, which is why we decided to stop putting her name to her articles”, explained Tapia Martínez.

In 2014, Norma reported the police chiefs in Huimanguillo for threatening her after reporting on their alleged involvement in kidnapping cases in the newspaper Cambio in the state of Puebla.

Artículo 19, an organization that advocates for press freedom in Mexico, has demanded that the authorities investigating the murder focus on her work as a journalist as the main line of investigation. According to their figures, six journalists have died because of their work during Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration.

During the six years that ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto was in power, 47 journalists were murdered in Mexico and it became the most dangerous country in the world to be a journalist, according to Artículo 19. In the first six months that López Obrador has been in power, it seems that nothing has changed. The trend remains the same.

Fuente: El Mundo / El País