Amid spike in journalist killings in Mexico, CPJ urges federalizing cases to end impunity

Six journalists have been murdered in Mexico this year, five of them in just over two months, marking one of the deadliest spikes in violence against journalists that CPJ has documented in over a decade.

Despite several organized calls for justice in the Mexican states where the reporters were killed, government authorities have not addressed concerns by local journalists and press freedom groups that journalists are being targeted in connection with their work. President Claudia Sheinbaum, who assumed office as Mexico’s first female president in late 2024, has not commented on the string of killings as a whole, nor has her government announced any specific actions in response.

At a state level, responses have been equally lacking. Gov. Salomón Jara of Oaxaca condemned a journalist’s murder in his state, but faces criticism over his frequent verbal attacks against critical reporting. In Veracruz, where three of this year’s killings took place, Gov. Rocío Nahle denied during a June 15 press conference that her state has a press violence problem. Beyond announcing investigations, the state governments of Puebla and Guerrero have not directly addressed the killings of Josué Martínez and Alex Serna.

In response, CPJ has called on the Mexican Federal Attorney General’s office (FGR) to federalize all cases of killed journalists, increase coordination between federal and state authorities, and strengthen protective measures for all journalists under the federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.

Federal authorities not only have broad authority, according to Article 21 of the Mexican National Code of Penal Procedures, to take charge of investigations of crimes against journalists when public officials are involved, but they also have shown to be more effective in the past in winning convictions in several high-profile cases of murdered journalists, including the 2017 killings of Miroslava Breach Velducea and Javier Valdez Cárdenas.

Journalist killings intensify in Mexico

CPJ research has found that impunity continues to be the main factor that incentivizes deadly attacks against the press in Mexico, rendering the need to federalize the cases all the more urgent, especially due to the poor track record of state prosecutors investigating attacks against the press and the alleged involvement of local public officials in at least two cases.

As of January 1, 2026, the following journalists have been killed in Mexico:

• Roxana Guzmán’s remains were found in Moloacán, a town south of Nanchital in Veracruz on Friday, July 3, according to a statement published by the Veracruz state prosecutor’s office (FGE). Guzmán was reported missing June 2 after an unidentified man was seen using a heavy tool to break down her door in a video shared widely across social media that day. A second unidentified male pointed a gun and threatened Guzmán and her family. Eight suspects have been arrested, four of them members of the Ixhuatlán municipal police who allegedly provided resources and logistical support to the other four suspects.

• Luis Ángel López was shot and killed around 1 a.m. on June 11 in Poza Rica, Veracruz, according to news reports and a statement released by the CEAPP on Facebook the same day. According to the reports, López, a reporter for regional newspaper Vanguardia, was shot by unknown assailants on the same road where journalist Carlos Castro was shot and killed in January.

• The Guerrero State Human Rights Commission confirmed in a July 3 statement on Facebook that environmental journalist, activist and content creator Alex Serna’s body was found June 22 in Zihuatanejo, in the southern state of Guerrero, according to news reports, though the date has not been confirmed by state authorities. He had been reported missing on June 20, according to the same news reports, which added that Serna’s body showed signs of torture.

• Josué Martínez, the founder and general director of the Facebook-based news site Noticias San Martín Texmelucan, was shot dead near his residence around 8 a.m. on Thursday, July 16, by unidentified motorcyclists in the town of San Martín Texmelucan, in the central Mexican state of Puebla, according to news reports and a brief statement released by the Puebla state prosecutor’s office. Reports noted that the office is investigating Martínez’s killing and that the journalist was with his 13-year-old son during the attack.

• Alejandro Leyva Aguilar, was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the town of San Pablo Etla, just north of the state capital of Oaxaca de Juárez, on Wednesday, July 22, according to news reports and a statement by the Oaxaca state prosecutor’s office. He was eating at a food stand near his residence at the time of the attack. The news reports speak of at least two attackers riding a motorcycle. The perpetrators fled the scene. Leyva was a former director of CORTV, a Oaxaca-based television broadcaster, and was more recently mostly active as an opinion writer and columnist. He published his columns on his personal Facebook page, which has 21,000 followers, under the title “El Zumbido del Mascarpón,” in which he was fiercely critical of Oaxaca state governor Salomón Jara and wrote about organized crime, corruption, and abuse of power by state and local authorities.

Fueling impunity

Mexico has consistently ranked among the top 10 countries in CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, often just below countries that are open warzones. Moreover, CPJ has classified 97 of all 166 killings of journalists and media workers in Mexico since 1992 as ‘unconfirmed’, meaning CPJ was unable to determine whether the killings were directly related to the victims’ work as journalists. In the vast majority of those cases, police investigations either stalled or did not provide insight into the motive behind the attacks, allowing them to linger in impunity.

The underlying causes of the violence are largely similar to those documented by CPJ over the past few decades. Violent turf wars between drug trafficking and other criminal gangs continue to rage across the country, rendering journalists, especially those who cover corruption and crime, particularly vulnerable to attacks. CPJ research has found that public officials, especially police, are often among the attackers, fueling distrust and often leading journalists to not report threats and attacks, and impunity continues to be the main factor incentivizing these crimes. 

Not a single case of a murdered or disappeared journalist has led to arrests and convictions of both those who masterminded and those who carried out the attacks in this century . Even in the most high-profile cases, such as the 2017 murders of Miroslava Breach Velducea and IPFA-awardee Javier Valdez Cárdenas, Mexican federal authorities were only able to secure the arrest and convictions of some of the suspects.

Rejecting protection

“While the severity and the pace of this year’s violence against the press is shocking and outrageous, Mexican authorities are anything but powerless to stop the killings. They have an opportunity to prevent further violence, protect reporters and fully commit to guaranteeing freedom of the press,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “President Sheinbaum and her administration can choose to break the cycle of violence and impunity that defined her predecessors’ relationship with the press, or she can become the next in a long line of Mexican presidents who stood by as the country cemented its abysmal status as the deadliest for journalists in the Americas.”

The federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which operates under the auspices of the federal Interior Secretariat, appears to be less effective despite the ongoing crisis of violence and impunity. The mechanism has approximately 500 journalists incorporated into its protection program. The agency has not published any public figures in 2025 and 2026, but according to Andrés Solís, a member of the agency’s advisory council for evaluation of protective measures, approximately 80 percent of all requests to be incorporated by human rights defenders and journalists are rejected. This would mark a significant rise in rejections compared to previous years, just as deadly violence against reporters is spiking.