Mexican photojournalist Ruben Espinosa found dead

He shot a cover photograph of Duarte for an issue of leading Mexican news magazine Proceso in February of 2014 that was accompanied by the headline, “Veracruz, lawless state”.

“He didn’t trust them”, the friend said. Three of them had lived in the apartment and the fourth was a domestic employee, the city prosecutor’s office said.

One of the women found slain in the Navarte apartment, Nadia Vera, a 32-year-old dance company promoter and social activist, was unrelenting in her criticism of Mr Duarte in an interview on the rompeviento.tv site posted in November. Instead, state officials said it was robbery. The reality is that violence against the press is growing and there has been impunity in every case.

“Rubén Espinosa fled after being threatened in one of the region’s deadliest states for journalists and was murdered after six weeks in a place once seen as a safe haven in the country”, said Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s senior program coordinator for the Americas.

And it’s not just Espinosa’s death that’s sparked concern. Two more, including Espinosa, have been killed outside of the state and three have gone missing.

In June, Espinosa told Article 19 that he noticed he was being followed in several locations and given threatening looks.

Around 50 people, as well as Espinosa’s dog Cosmos, held a vigil for the 31-year-old before laying him to rest in a Mexico City cemetery. When they didn’t hear from him later, they alerted the advocacy group, which in turn alerted authorities. He said that in 2013, he was among the journalists attacked by police during a September 2013 eviction of protesting teachers and students. In these situations, we can’t do less with any type of aggression or intimidation because we don’t know what might happen.

Crime syndicates and state security forces regularly try to intimidate reporters in Veracruz. Some 90 percent of journalist murders in Mexico since 1992 have gone unpunished, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Local prosecutor Rodolfo Rios Garza told reporters that all lines of investigation would be pursued.

Rios also said the apartment was ransacked and robbed.

A spokesmen for the District Attorney’s Office informed the El Universal newspaper that Espinosa, who additionally labored as a freelancer for the AVC information company in Veracruz, was among these killed.

Fears that Espinosa’s death could end in impunity were fueled by Sunday’s news conference by Rios, when Mexico City’s prosecutor never acknowledged that Espinosa was seeking refuge in Mexico’s capital, saying he came to the city for “professional opportunities”. According to some counts, 88 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000 (tallies vary because different organizations use different criteria).

And Gov. Javier Duarte de Ochoa has faced criticism in the past over the deaths of journalists in his state and over what some activists have characterized as efforts to stifle free speech.

The threats had forced Espinosa to leave his state. “How many journalists have been murdered, and what has come of it?”