The 15th media professional to die this year countrywide was shot to death on Monday in southern Mexico. He was a journalist and the host of an online local news show. Fredid Román was shot and killed in Chilpancingo, the state’s capital, according to prosecutors in the southern state of Guerrero.
The majority of Román’s broadcast, “The Reality of Guerrero,” was devoted to state politics. Also, he published a column.
Drug cartels, armed vigilantes, and other organizations often engage in combat in the state of Guerrero.
Mexico, which is currently regarded as the most hazardous nation for journalists outside of a war zone, has seen one of the deadliest years ever for journalists in 2022.
The shooting death of Román, who was reportedly shot inside his car and had previously produced a newspaper under the same name, was not immediately followed by any more information from the prosecution.
On August 22, 2022, in Chilpancingo, state of Guerrero, Mexico, police officers wearing forensic suits examine the area surrounding the car where writer Fredid Roman was fatally shot. The scene is in front of the newspaper La Realidad. via Getty Images, JESUS GUERRERO/AFP
Just one week before to the murder, independent journalist Juan Arjón López was discovered dead in the border state of Sonora in the north. Authorities said that a strike to the head caused his death. Across the border from Yuma, Arizona, in San Luis Rio Colorado, his corpse was discovered.
Violence from the drug cartels has recently impacted that region. In a section of desert next to a waste dump in San Luis, amateur searchers discovered 11 dead in secret burial trenches in March.
A journalist was one of four individuals slain inside a beer store in the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico at the beginning of August.
Authorities said that it was unclear if the journalist’s job, his capacity as a representative of neighborhood businesses during the preparation of an impending fair, or some other factor prompted the assault.
While small-town authorities or politicians with political or criminal objectives are often suspected in journalist deaths, organized crime is frequently implicated as well. In Mexico’s interior, journalists working for tiny news organizations are easy prey.
After Arjón López was killed, Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ representative for Mexico, wrote that “although some arrests have been made in earlier cases of press killings this year, an ongoing climate of impunity continues to fuel these attacks” despite the fact that some arrests had been made.