By: E&P Staff A Mexican newspaper reporter who was investigating the murder of U.S. video journalist Brad Will during last fall's street clashes in Oaxaca was shot twice outside his home, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported Thursday.
CPJ said the reporter for the Oaxaca-based daily Tiempo, Misael Sanchez Sarmiento, was wounded in the jaw and leg in the attack Tuesday. He was in stable condition Wednesday after surgery, the New York City-based organization said.
Sanchez heads Tiempo's investigative team, and had received death threats last November after reporting on the slaying of U.S. journalist Bradley Will, a documentary filmmaker, and reporter for the Web site Indymedia.
Tiempo Director Wenceslao Aorve told CPJ that he did not know the motive of Tuesday's attack, but believed it was related to Sanchez's journalistic work.
Tiempo supports the administration of Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, a PAN party leader whose use of police to attempt to quell a teachers strike set off a chain of events leading to violent clashes between authorities and the leftist Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), which demanded Ruiz's ouster.
By CPJ's count, six journalists have been killed "in direct reprisal for their work in Mexico" since 2000, and another 12 were murdered for motives that are not yet clear. CPJ noted that three journalists have disappeared this year alone in Mexico.
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