The CPJ announced on 7 October 1996 that it will be presenting an International Press Freedom Award to J. Jesus Blancornelas in New York on 26 November in recognition of his more than two decades of dedicated perseverance in the defense of press freedom in Mexico. Blancornelas’ distinguished career is marked by his refusal to […]
The CPJ announced on 7 October 1996 that it will be presenting an
International Press Freedom Award to J. Jesus Blancornelas in New
York on 26 November in recognition of his more than two decades of
dedicated perseverance in the defense of press freedom in Mexico.
Blancornelas’ distinguished career is marked by his refusal to
yield to intimidation, despite multiple pressures on his news
weekly, “Zeta”, and its staff, including the shocking murder in
1988 of “Zeta”‘s co-founder and featured weekly columnist Hector
Felix Miranda.
The collaboration of Felix and Blancornelas dated to the 1970s
when Blancornelas was editor-in-chief of the then-independent
Tijuana daily “ABC” and Felix was the paper’s leading political
columnist. Both were ousted in the wake of a union takeover of the
paper orchestrated by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI).
On the occasion of the announcement of this important award, CPJ
is publicly urging the Attorney General of Baja California state
to reopen the case of Felix, who was shot to death in an ambush as
he drove to “Zeta” offices on 20 April 1988. Felix, a popular
columnist widely known by his pen name, “Felix the Cat,”
frequently targeted the wealthy and powerful in his gossipy and
barbed weekly column.
“We know that the material authors of the murder have been
captured and sentenced, but we still sustain that the intellectual
author or authors (of the murder) are still out there and need to
be captured,” said Blancornelas, who has called upon three
successive governors of Baja California to re-examine the case.
The repeated requests from Felix’s colleagues for a new
investigation have also been endorsed by the Inter American Press
Association, PEN International, and other respected international
organizations devoted to the defense of press freedom. There is a
consensus in the international press community that the
investigative and judicial proceedings conducted in the wake of
Felix’s assassination left unresolved central issues regarding the
motives behind the murder and the identity of the intellectual
author or authors of this heinous crime.
Antonio Vera Palestina and Victoriano Medina Moreno, two former
employees of the Agua Caliente Race Track in Tijuana, were
convicted of Felix’s murder and are currently serving prison
sentences. But, authorities never established a motive for the
killing. Both Vera and Medina were employees of Jorge Hank Rhon,
president of Agua Caliente and the son of one of Mexico’s
wealthiest and powerful politicians, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. Vera is
a former chief of security at the racetrack and had also been
Jorge Hank Rhon’s personal bodyguard. Neither Vera nor Medina is
believed to have personally known Felix, though Hank Rhon was an
acquaintance of the slain journalist and had emerged as a frequent
target of criticism in Felix’s popular weekly column, “Un Poco de
Algo,” (“A Little of Something”). CPJ supports a widespread call
for an investigation of Hank Rhon, whom Blancornelas and human
rights groups have identified as a possible suspect.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities below:
state and national authorities to probe more deeply into the
circumstances surrounding Felix’s death is in itself a constraint
on press freedom
vigorously and visibly to the murder of such a prominent
journalist can only inhibit the development of the kind of
aggressive, independent news reporting on which democracy depends
to accede to these requests for a new investigation as an
indication of their commitment to the right of press freedom
guaranteed not just to journalists but to all citizens of Baja
California by Article 7 of the Constitution of the United Mexican
States and by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights
Appeals To
Honorable Lic. Hector Teran Teran
Governor of Baja California
Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico
Fax: +202 667 3482
Please copy appeals to CPJ and to:
His Excellency Ernesto Zedillo de Leon
President of the Republic of Mexico
Mexico DF, Mexico
Fax: +525 271 1764
Lic. Antonio Lozano Gracia
Attorney General (federal)
Reforma y Jaime Nuno
Box 06300
Mexico DF, Mexico
Fax: +525 625 7642 / 626 4478 / 626 4430
Lic. Jose Luis Anaya Bautista
Baja California State Public Prosecutor
Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico
