Group Concerned About Attacks on Reporters in Mexico

By: (AP) The international press freedom group Reporters without Borders expressed concern on Wednesday about recent attacks and threats against at least 15 reporters in Mexico.

"Violence and pressure are often the work of local authorities who still have great difficulty accepting the balance of power that the press represents," the Paris-based organization said in a news release.

It called for investigation of the events and punishment for those guilty of attacks.

The group noted that the publisher of a small magazine, Mundo Politico, in the port city of Acapulco was kidnapped on May 22. According to local press reports, Leodegario Aguilera, who also owns a small hotel, was seized by men wearing uniforms similar to those of state police.

Friends and relatives of Aguilera this week staged a protest in front of the Mexican consulate in New York calling for the government to investigate the kidnapping.

Three other reporters -- Maximiliano Cortez of Radio Variedades along with Mario Solis and Edgar Badillo of the newspaper Diario de Colima -- were attacked and beaten on May 23 by a group led by a former governor's nephew, according to Reporters Without Borders and local press reports.

Cortez reportedly had broadcast allegations that the nephew was often publicly drunk.

Reporters Without Borders also said that Martin Serrano Herrera, editor of Diario Tribuna in Jalapa, reported being attacked in the street by three men who appeared to be police agents on May 22.

Francisco Guerrero Garro, head of a new publication in Cuernavaca called Clarin del Sur, also told Reporters Without Borders that his paper had received threats from officials in Cuautla city after allegations of corruption there.

The group complained that prosecutors had contacted at least nine reporters in the northern border state of Chihuahua asking them to reveal sources related to a series of murders of women in Ciudad Juarez.