WAN is gravely concerned that 29 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000 and a further eight are missing. Many more have been attacked or threatened. Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a reporter, editor or publisher.

Most recently, on 3 May - World Press Freedom Day - Carlos Ortega Melo Samper, a journalist for the newspaper El Tiempo de Durango in northern Mexico, was murdered by an unidentified gunman. Shortly before he died, he had received threats from local authorities in relation to his investigative reporting exposing corruption. Mr Melo Samper claimed in an article that had not yet been published that the local mayor and another senior politician would be responsible should any harm come to him.

In another recent incident, Martín Velázquez González, a reporter for the monthly newspaper Sin Fronteras in Tabasco state, was injured in a machete attack on 1 May while distributing copies of the newspaper that reported on allegations of the misuse of public resources by a local Congressman.

The Board of WAN calls on President Felipe Calderón to do everything in his power to end all violence against journalists and to halt the climate of impunity enjoyed by those who murder and attack them. It urges him to take all necessary steps to ensure that killers and all those who have protected them are swiftly brought to justice.