(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Víctor Manuel Tinoco Rubi, governor of the state of Michoacán, RSF “protested the pressures imposed on Ángel Méndez, a correspondent with the dailies “Panorama” and “La Voz de Michoacán” in Coahuayana. RSF believes that the journalist’s interrogation, so that he would reveal his sources, and the police surveillance he […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Víctor Manuel Tinoco Rubi, governor of the state of Michoacán, RSF “protested the pressures imposed on Ángel Méndez, a correspondent with the dailies “Panorama” and “La Voz de Michoacán” in Coahuayana. RSF believes that the journalist’s interrogation, so that he would reveal his sources, and the police surveillance he has been subjected to “constitute a violation of press freedom and attack the fundamental principle of journalism to protect one’s sources”. RSF also lamented the governor’s statements accusing journalists who publish this kind of information of “destabilising the State”. In the letter, Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general, called on the governor to “use his influence to ensure that pressure against Méndez cease” and “retract his statements about other journalists who publish the same information.”
On 2 March 2000, two police officers went to Méndez’s home and took him to the Coahuayana police station so that he could be interrogated about his sources of information. That same day, the journalist had published information about confrontations between the army and supposed factions of the armed opposition group, the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR, Ejército Popular Revolucionario). Since that time, the journalist’s home has been under police surveillance. Also on 2 March, the governor apparently accused all journalists who print this kind of information of being guilty of “destabilising the state.”
