[Mexico:]Gunmen open fire on Reynosa newspaper

The Monitor ^ | May 07, 2012 | Staff

[SwinneySwitch]

No injuries have been reported after unknown gunmen fired several gunshots at a Reynosa newspaper Monday afternoon.

The unidentified shooters opened fire at political tabloid Hora Cero about 1 p.m. Monday, said a Tamaulipas law enforcement official who requested anonymity.

A reporter familiar with the Hora Cero attack said “every part” of the newspaper’s building along the Ribereña highway had been hit with bullets, though none of its staff suffered injuries.

“They shot up the whole ... building,” the reporter said in Spanish, adding that Hora Cero’s editors had received threats in recent weeks.

Hector Hugo Jimenez, the general director at Hora Cero, denied the attack, saying any reports of it were “pure rumors.”

“It’s not true,” he said in Spanish.

Several other reporters in Mexico confirmed the paper had been attacked, but asked not to be named for safety reasons.

An Agence France-Presse report quoted an anonymous source who said at least six masked attackers gave a warning to evacuate the Hora Cero building within 10 minutes or they would open fire. The shooters then shot up two levels of the paper’s building with assault rifles.

Hora Cero publishes a tabloid format newspaper that focuses on local and regional politics, with distribution in Tamaulipas and the Rio Grande Valley. The media outlet also publishes video and radio content, and it once had a partnership with KGBT-TV in Harlingen.

Hora Cero’s offices are at the 3.5-kilometer mark of La Ribereña, also known as Federal Highway 2, less than a mile south of the Rio Grande. The route is frequented by drug traffickers because it is the primary link between Tamaulipas’ border cities and straddles the border.

Attacks on journalists have become increasingly common across Mexico.

Since April 28, three journalists have been slain in Veracruz state, which straddles the Gulf of Mexico south of Tamaulipas. The killings caused an uproar among journalists across Mexico.

Journalists in Tamaulipas have been attacked, as well. In 2010, a grenade detonated outside of television station Televisa’s offices in Matamoros.

At least 45 journalists have been killed across Mexico since 2007, according to the International Press Institute. Widespread threats on local media outlets have led to a blackout of coverage involving Mexican drug cartels that operate across the border from South Texas.

More than 50,000 people have been killed in Mexican drug violence since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderón declared war on that country’s cartels that fight each other and government forces.

[bgill]

Good thing the border is still safe, huh.

[abigail2]

Maybe its time the newspapers went underground to publish.