Cecilio Pineda, murdered at 38 years of age. Photo@: TeleSur
On March 2, in the city of Altamirano, the journalist Cecilio Pineda was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle. Pineda was 38 years old and was the director of the newspaper La Voz de la Tierra Caliente and a contributor to El Universal newspaper. The online magazine Animal Politico reported that Cecilio Pineda “was a journalist specialized in police issues in the region of Tierra Caliente, an area that is currently suffering from serious security problems, a product of violence by ‘Los Tequileros’ criminal gang, dedicated to drug trafficking, threats and extortion.” According to the same magazine, just before he was killed, he had posted two videos on his Facebook page in which community members of San Miguel Totolapan urged Governor Hector Astudillo to arrest “Tequilero”, the leader of the gang of the same name.
Proceso magazine stated that state governor Hector Astudillo Flores declined to comment on Cecilio Pineda’s statements regarding the alleged protection of his administration of crime and local PRI deputy Saul Beltran Orozco. According to the Sur de Acapulco newspaper, the state’s attorney general, Xavier Olea Pelaez, revealed that organized crime was involved in the murder of the journalist.
Animal Politico recalled that journalist had been under threat since September 2015, the day in which an armed man shot him when he arrived at his house, where his wife and daughters were told that those shots were “a message sent for his journalistic publications.” After that assassination attempt, Cecilio Pineda began receiving precautionary measures from the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists of the Ministry of the Interior (SEGOB in its Spanish acronym). On October 14, 2016, the Mechanism withdrew those measures “on the grounds that no risk was identified.”
Sin Embargo magazine declared that “Cecilio is the second journalist murdered in little more than a year of the government of Hector Astudillo Flores and number 28 in the government of Enrique Peña Nieto. From 2000 to date, 101 journalists have been killed.” In addition, he denounced that “protection of journalists will not be effective if impunity is not combated. Mexico is the country in the most dangerous region to practice journalism and today there is 99.75% impunity in these crimes.”
For more information in Spanish:
Confirma Fiscal participación del crimen organizado en asesinato de Cecilio Pineda (El Sol de Acapulco, a 3 de marzo de 2017)
Minimiza Astudillo acusaciones de Cecilio Pineda (Proceso, a 6 de marzo de 2017)
Gobernación le quitó la protección al periodista asesinado porque no identificó riesgo (Animal político, a 4 de marzo de 2017)
Tres veces intentamos sacar a Cecilio Pineda de Altamirano pero no quiso: Segob (Proceso, 6 de marzo de 2017)
Cecilio Pineda (Sin embargo, 6 de marzo de 2017)
For more information from SIAPZ:
Chiapas : amenazas a periodista tras hacer públicos actos de corrupción de funcionarios del estado (20 de junio de 2016)
Guerrero: Asesinaron a periodista en Taxco (26 de abril de 2016)
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