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After four releases, tragic July ends with another abduction and a flight into exile

The relief at the release of the four journalists who were kidnapped on 26 July in Gómez Palacio, in the northwestern state of Durango, was short-lived. As the last two of the four journalists were freed, it was being reported that Ulises González Garcí­a, the editor of the local weekly La Opinión, had been kidnapped in the early hours of 29 July from his home in Jérez, in the neighbouring state of Zacatecas.

González joins the list of 11 journalists reported missing since 2003. His abduction capped a particularly tragic July for Mexico's media with a total of three journalists murdered. Their deaths have brought the total number of journalists killed in Mexico since 2000 to 67.

González's colleagues told Reporters Without Borders they did not know why he was abducted. According to local sources quoted in the Mexican press, a large ransom has been demanded. Neither his relatives nor his newspaper were volunteering any details.

The Zacatecas state attorney-general's office confirmed to Reporters Without Borders yesterday that it has known about his kidnapping since 29 July but it also declined to provide any details because of the secrecy surrounding the investigation. It added that it was aware that recent issues of González's weekly had referred to organised crime activity in Jérez.

The federal authorities must assist in an all-out effort to locate González which should be conducted in transparent manner and which hopefully will have as successful an outcome as the search for the last two journalists held in the Durango abductions, Multimedios Laguna cameraman Jaime Canales Fernández and Televisa cameraman Alejandro Hernández Pacheco, who were freed in the early hours of 31 July.

Televisa reporter Héctor Gordoa Márquez, who was kidnapped at the same time as Canales and Hernández by gangsters claiming to be members of the Pacific Cartel, had been released two days earlier. It has emerged that the fourth Durango kidnap victim, El Vespertino reporter Oscar Solí­s Gurrola, was freed a few hours after being abducted from his home.

All four journalists were kidnapped shortly after covering a demonstration against the dismissal of Gómez Palacio prison governor Margarita Rojas, who is alleged to have acted in complicity with other local officials in allowing prisoners convicted on drug trafficking charges to leave the prison.

In three videos announcing their demands, the kidnappers accused the police in the states of Durango and Coahuila of colluding with Los Zetas, a paramilitary group. It was one more example of how the drug cartels try to use to press for public relations purposes or to undermine rival gangs.

The day that the journalists were freed in Durango, a Televisa bureau was the target of a grenade attack in Nuevo Laredo, in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas. The grenades caused damage but no injuries.

Police evacuated the offices of the Norte and El Mexicano newspapers in the northern border city of Ciudad Juárez (in Chihuahua state) yesterday after anonymous calls were received announcing that they were about to be bombed. Journalists were shaken but no one was hurt, as the calls turned out to have been a hoax.

More and more Mexican journalists are fleeing the country because their work has become so dangerous. One of the latest to do so is Martí­n López Castro of Canal 44 TV in Ciudad Járez, who fled across the border to El Paso, Texas, on 27 July after seeing graffiti that threatened him with decapitation.

Reporters Without Borders urges the US authorities to grant López's asylum request, as they have in the past with other journalists who were supported by Reporters Without Borders.

Topics: Freedom of speech, Freedom of information, Freedom of expression,