User:Crtew/Edgar Daniel Esqueda Castro

Edgar Daniel Esqueda Castro
Disappeared	October 5, 2017 his home in San Luis Potosi
Status	found dead
Died	October 5, 2017 San Luis Potosi
Cause of death	tortured and shot
Body discovered	October 6, 2017 in San Luis Potosi
Nationality	Mexican
Occupation	Photograph journalist
Employer(s)	Metropoli San Luís, Vox Populi de San Luis Potosi, El Heraldo, Plan Informativo, Infórmate Potosino
Known for	covered local events and crime stories; was threatened and beaten by local police

Edgar Daniel Esqueda Castro, also known as ..., (ca. 1994 – October 5 2017), a Mexican freelance photograph journalist for the local news and news websites in San Luis Potosi, Mexico He covered local events and crime stories. He had been threatened and beaten by local police and forced to delete photos. On October 5, 2017 he was abducted from his home by armed men claiming to be state investigative police. He was found shot dead on October 6, 2017, there were signs of torture. He was the 11th journalist to be killed in Mexico in 2017.

Personal

Castro was a freelance photograph journalist/reporter in San Luis Potosi. He often covered local events and crime.[2] Typically, writing for the local news sites Metropoli San Luis, Vox Populi de San Luis Potosi, El Heraldo, Plan Informative, Infórmate Potosino.[3]

Death

Mexico City

Mexico City

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CITY is in Mexico and shown relative to the capital Mexico City.

Castro was abducted from his home on October 5th and found dead October 6th. Armed men broke into the home shared by him, his wife, and his mother while they were sleeping on October 5th.[1][3][23] The men claimed to be state investigative police but were dressed in everyday, civilian clothing.[23] The men broke a window of the front door of the home then stormed in. They entered Castro’s bedroom, took his and his wife’s cellphones, then drug Castro out.[23] His wife said the men “grabbed Edgar by the neck and threw him to the ground while pointing a gun at me.”[3][24] His body was found at 9 am the next day near an airport in San Luis Potosí. He was found shot dead with at least 3 bullet wounds and signs that he had been tied up and tortured.[1][14] The state prosecutor’s office denied that its detectives had abducted Castro although the men claimed to be from them.[3]

Context

Castro was a journalist that covered crime and social issues. Because of his work he had received threats and intimidation from the police in the past. In July of 2017 he was beaten and forced by five police officers to delete the pictures he had taken after a shootout and was then forced to leave.[1][3][9][23][24] Then, on July 13th, 2017, he was photographing at another event and the police verbally threatened him and asked for his identification and photographed it.[1][3][9][23] They told him they were watching his house because they thought he was leaking information “to the bad guys.”[1][23] According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, twelve Mexican journalists had been killed that year in retaliation for their reporting.[2] They were journalists who also often wrote about crime and corruption, specifically corrupt government officials or drug cartels. Many were killed in broad daylight, in public, and in front of their children.[2] Outside of war zones, Mexico was the most dangerous place for journalists in 2017.[5] More than 100 journalists were killed in Mexico from the year 2000 to the year 2017. More than 90% of those murders remain unpunished.[16][17]

Impact

In December of 2017, 39 Mexican media organizations, including print, radio, and television outlets, announced that they joined forces to combat the wave of journalist killings in Mexico. The group aims to outline objectives and establish channels of communication with the national and international human rights groups. The groups agreed to launch an awareness campaign. They called journalist killing “a crisis in Mexico for over a decade.” They are urging the government to devote resources to support measures of protection and transparency.[4]

Reactions

There was a protest of about 100 people, mainly journalists, in San Luis Potosi. Among those people was Leopoldo Pachecho who has worked for 25 years as a journalist. He said the killing of Castro showed that any work toward prevention has failed since there in no punishment for any crimes against journalists.[3] Héctor M. Guevara was a colleague of Castro’s. In a tribute on the website Vox Populi, Guevara described the time when Castro rushed to Mexico City to help after the earthquake on September 19th. He said the last time he remembered seeing Castro he was waiting outside a collapsed building in a hard hat with paramedic equipment to be called to help.[3] The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, called for an investigation into the murder of Castro on October 10th, 2017. UNESCO is the United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom.[20] On October 11th, 2017, the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released a statement saying it condemns the murder of Castro in Mexico and urges the state to investigate the crime with due diligence, and clarify its possible relation to the journalistic activity. They are urging authorities not to rule out the practice of journalism as a motive for murder and/or aggression before the investigation is completed.[21]

See also

• List of journalists and media workers killed in Mexico
• List of journalists killed in 2017

TEMPORARY URL HOLDER

• nytimes
• latimes
• cbsnews
• voanews
• tcpalm
• proceso1
• proceso2
• diario19
• inquirer
• cronicaviva
• riodoce
• astrolabio
• larepublica
• indianexpress
• guardian
• today
• newvision
• democracynow
• lajornadasanluis (I am unsure if I should include this its about his mother dying a month later with health issues)
• unesco
• oas
• rubio
• cpj
• rsf

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