Javier Valdez

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Javier Valdez Cardenas

Javier Valdez Cárdenas (born April 14, 1967 in Culiacán , Mexico ; died May 15, 2017 there ) was a Mexican journalist best known for his extensive coverage of the drug war in Mexico .

Life

Javier Valdez studied sociology at the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa . In the 1990s he worked for a television station in Sinaloa and in 1998 became a correspondent for the daily La Jornada from Mexico City , and he also worked for Agence France-Presse (AFP) for a good decade . In 2003 he and colleagues founded the weekly magazine Ríodoce in Culiacán, which reports on crime and corruption in Sinaloa, one of the countries with the highest rate of violence in Mexico and the center of the Sinaloa drug cartel . The editorial rooms of the magazine were attacked with a fragmentation grenade in 2009 .

Valdez wrote five books on the drug war in Mexico and has received numerous awards for his commitment. In 2011 he received the International Press Freedom Prize of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) . When he presented his latest book on the dangers of "narco-journalism" in late 2016, he said: "Even if you wear a bulletproof vest or employ bodyguards, it's the cartels that determine the day they will kill you."

On May 15, 2017, Javier Valdez was dragged out of his car by masked people not far from the editorial office of his weekly magazine Ríodoce and murdered with 12 shots. He leaves behind his wife and a daughter. Valdez is the sixth reporter to be killed in Mexico in 2017. According to the Guardian, his assassination was an act of terror in the power struggle of the Sinaloa cartel after the extradition of drug lord El Chapo to the United States.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Matthias Rüb : The cartels determine the date of your death. Journalist Javier Valdez was shot dead in the Mexican city of Culiacan. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 18, 2017, p. 15.
  2. ↑ Klaus Ehringfeld: Journalists in Mexico: "I grew up with death" , Der Spiegel , December 27, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b Klaus Ehringfeld: On the death of Javier Valdez: Dancers on Mexico's minefield , Der Spiegel , May 17, 2017.
  4. ^ Angus Macqueen: Javier Valdez: brave, brilliant casualty of Mexico's dirty war , The Guardian , May 21, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Valdez, Javier
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Valdez Cardenas, Javier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican journalist and murder victim
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1967
PLACE OF BIRTH Culiacan
DATE OF DEATH 15th May 2017
Place of death Culiacan