Ruben Espinosa sustained severe injuries to his face before he was killed, said Dario Ramirez, director of the Article 19 group.

Espinosa was found dead late on Friday in an apartment in Mexico City. Three women who lived in the apartment and their housekeeper also were killed. They appeared to have been tortured and sexually assaulted before being shot, Ramirez said.

All the victims were shot in the head with a 9mm weapon.

But Ramirez was angered when Mexico City prosecutor Rodolfo Rios Garza said on Sunday he was pursuing all lines of investigation into the killings, including crimes against women and a possible robbery.

Ramirez said Espinosa’s work and the threats that drove him out of his home state of Veracruz should be the main line of investigation. He had worked in the state for eight years, including for prominent newsmagazine Proceso, before fleeing to Mexico City.

Rios never acknowledged that Espinosa was seeking refuge in Mexico City, saying he came to the capital for “professional opportunities”.

When dealing with journalists’ killings, authorities in Mexico are often quick to discard their work as a motive, even though the country is the most dangerous in Latin America for reporters. In large swaths of the country, crime and corruption are never reported, as the media has been bought or intimidated into silence.

“I feel there is a disdain toward investigating the journalistic motives or even motives that had to do with his displacement,” said Dario Ramirez, director of the Article 19 free press advocacy group. “The issue is that he was at risk and after a month he was assassinated. These are coincidences that can’t be discarded by saying he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Article 19 said it published an alert about Espinosa on 15 June after he reported unknown people following him in Veracruz, taking his photograph and harassing him outside his home in Xalapa, the state capital.

Veracruz has been a dangerous state for reporters. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 journalists have been killed there since 2010, all during the administration of Governor Javier Duarte – the most recent just a month ago. Espinosa is the second Veracruz journalist to be found dead outside of the state.

Espinosa’s killing has raised tension among reporters who long have considered Mexico’s capital to be a refuge from media intimidation and violence elsewhere in Mexico.

Article and image reposted from TheGuardian.com

On November 13 & 14, fD in partnership with El Centro Cultural de Espana in Mexico is hosting a two day consultation meeting on free expression and cultural rights in Mexico and Central America. 45 representatives from the arts, culture and human rights sectors will attend the consultation to exchange experiences, issues and problems, and mechanisms of support as they relate to different forms of creative activism.

What: 2-day consultation / workshop with artists, culture workers and activists from Mexico and Central America

Why: Objectives:

• to collectively explore local/regional issues and situations of danger to artists and culture workers whose work is linked to social justice and free expression
• to collectively identify strategies for a) protection from threats in advance of a controversial cultural manifestation; b) strategies to protect the artists or culture worker from danger following actual threat or harm; c)  strategies for identifying safe havens to remove the artist or cultural worker from danger; d) creating networked support to offer legal, financial, psycho-social and other assistance; e)  creating networked support for supporting the artist or cultural workers’ continued work in the community
• to collectively adapt, re-write and own a version of freeDimensional’s ‘Advo-kit’ (a DIY manual for protecting artists and culture workers in distress) tailored to the local and regional contexts in Mexico and Central America
• to seed the development of local and regional artists safety support networks that can be activated to serving the needs of individuals and communities under threat

How:  freeDimensional uses grassroots methods to bring local partners together who have a natural complementarity yet may not normally work together to form a cross-sector support network for endangered artists and cultural workers.  Starting with a series of in-depth local visits and meetings, key actors are identified including: arts collectives, individual artists, activist groups, human rights defenders, free speech NGOs or social movements. Taking into consideration the compounded effects of varying forms of repression on identity groups such as LGBT, women, indigenous peoples, youth or others, follow up consultation meetings highlight the issues, topics and themes relevant to the local situation and create a space for participants to brainstorm local/regional options, possibilities and safety mechanisms.  This inclusive process aims to connect and catalyze a regional network inclusive of artists, culture workers, journalists, human rights defenders, social justice movements, indigenous communicators, arts educators, etc. that can be mobilized to deliver holistic support to those who need it.  At the end of the process, a tangible deliverable will be a version of fD’s Creative Safe Haven Advo-kit adapted and re-worked to directly address culture worker safety and readiness in relation to local and regional contexts.

Check in for updates to follow.