Journalist brutally beaten in Chiapas

Militants of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) beat and threatened to kill reporter Edi Darinel López Zacarías on 22 January 2008, according to Mexico’s Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) in San Miguel de Allende.

Following the assault, López Zacarías, who works for “El Orbe”, “Diario de Chiapas” and “Chiapas Hoy” newspapers, as well as for ASICH news agency, had to be taken to hospital where he was treated for a fractured cheekbone and damage to an eye that caused ocular edema.

According to the journalist’s brother, the journalist recognised his assailants: Milton Ramírez García – son of Noe Ramírez Chávez, the former president of the local PRI organization, and Guadalupe García Muñoz, the ex-candidate for mayor for the PRI in the last municipal elections respectively – and Fernando de Jesús Sánchez Gómez, Walberto Martínez
López, Luis Mérida Roblero and Gilberto Alexander Mérida Roblero.

This is the second time that López Zacarías has been attacked by those assailants. They also beat him up on december 27tth. he reported both attacks to the authorities.

According to Cepet, the reporter published news about alleged acts of vandalism, corruption, fraud, homicide, organised crime and illegal earnings by the Ramírez García y Ramírez Chávez families.