(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, RSF protested the attack on Ricardo Alemán, contributor to the daily “El Universal”, published in Mexico City, and to Radio 13. Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general, asked Cuellar for “a thorough inquiry into the attack against the journalist.” Alemán is the second journalist attacked in […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, RSF protested the attack on Ricardo Alemán, contributor to the daily “El Universal”, published in Mexico City, and to Radio 13. Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general, asked Cuellar for “a thorough inquiry into the attack against the journalist.” Alemán is the second journalist attacked in the Federal District in less than two months.
According to information obtained by RSF, on 15 August 2000, Alemán’s office was the target of numerous gunshots fired from a neighbouring building. The shots resulted in light material damage to the office of the journalist, who was absent at the time of the attack. The perpetrators and the motive for the attack are not known. According to “El Universal”, in his column “Political Itinerary”, Alemán had recently criticised the decision of the National Action Party (Partido Accion Nacional, PAN) parliamentary group in the Guanajuato State Congress to sentence to prison women who opt to have an abortion after a pregnancy resulting from a rape. He also denounced the destruction in the city of Guadalajara of artistic works that allegedly offended Catholics.
Previously, RSF expressed its concern over the situation faced by journalists in the Federal District. On 7 July, journalist Freddy Secundino Sánchez, of the “Época” weekly, received a death threat via a telephone call. Three weeks prior to the call, on 15 June, two men who claimed to work for the judicial police forced him into a taxi. The attack was apparently linked to a series of articles written by Sánchez on the 2 July presidential election written by Sánchez (see IFEX alert of 28 July 2000).
