Gunmen threatened reporters at the funeral of journalist Armando Linares

Attacks on journalists continue even at the funeral of a comrade, as in the farewell of the director of Monitor Michoacán, Armando Linares, where subjects threatened reporters who were covering the wake to leave the scene.

Edgar Ledesma, a communicator for Milenio, reported that he was with his team near the funeral home when he was intercepted by a guy carrying a firearm and warned him to get out of there; when they noticed, the other attendees noticed that it was a group of aggressors.

“A guy armed with a gun around his waist, leather jacket and hat came up to us and told us that we had two minutes to leave the place or we were going to be worth it,” the reporter said as part of his liaison in television coverage.

He had previously published the situation on his Twitter account, during his attendance at the funeral of the journalist shot dead on March 15, in the vicinity of his home in Zitacuaro. After conducting interviews with those who came to dismiss his colleague, a subject approached him and asked if it was from the press, the aggressor immediately made a call and returned threatening.

The reporter returned to the Los Angeles funeral home and told what had happened to the cameraman and photographer who were going with him to get out of there. However, the others became aware of the situation and also decided to withdraw. When they left, they noticed that at least four men were caught, including the one who was armed.

The Michoacán Prosecutor's Office had only learned about what was shared on social networks and verified that the measures issued in this case were being addressed. Meanwhile, the Social Communication Unit of the state government only responded that they were separate cases, without giving further details.

On the same day, the entity's governor, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, went to Mexico City to hold a meeting with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the National Palace, after the president promised a thorough report on the attacks against journalists.

During the noon, reporters, photographers and cameramen stormed the state Congress to demand that ministerial authorities investigate to clarify the murder of Armando Linares. The latter was the same one that announced on January 31 the murder of his partner Roberto Toledo, a collaborator of Monitor Michoacán.

Before going to the legislative precinct, they marched through the streets of the capital Morelia, until they reached the Government Palace, where they found the doors closed. Some more went to Zitácuaro in a farewell almost in solitude and only with the presence of relatives such as the journalist's wife and children.

“The feeling, the feeling, is one of powerlessness, of terror. We see a president of the Republic who, far from accepting criticism, is going against it by generating hate campaigns against communicators, when it is the communicators who must scrutinize the public service,” Salatiel Arroyo Zamora, journalist and director of the newspaper El Despertar de Zitácuaro, told EFE.

According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, 56 journalists have been killed in Mexico since López Obrador took office in December 2018. So far this year there have been 7 cases with Armando Linares, according to records of the Unit for the Defence of Human Rights.

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