Freedom House Calls for Investigation Into Missing American Journalist in Mexico

Freedom House urges Mexican authorities to open an investigation into the disappearance of Mexican-American freelance journalist, Zane Alejandro Plemmons Rosales, who went missing in mid-May in Nuevo Laredo.  The disappearance of another journalist in the northern states of Mexico illustrates the dire need for greater journalist protection mechanisms. Plemmons was a crime scene photographer who was working for newspaper El Debate, where he worked in Mazatlan covering the Sinaloa cartel.

His family stated that Plemmons had traveled to Nuevo Laredo to work and visit relatives. The hotel staff explained that the journalist had left the hotel to take pictures as he had heard gunshots nearby, but he did not return. Instead, two armed masked-man came by and took the journalist’s personal belongings. The family has reported his disappearance to Mexican and US authorities, without any results. Freedom House continues to call authorities to solve the crimes against journalists and implement the mechanisms in place. Mexico has one of the highest impunity rates in which 98 percent of cases remain unsolved according to the National Commission on Human Rights.

Plemmons is the third journalist to disappear this year. On May 16, Federico Manuel Garcia disappeared in San Luis Potosi. Mexico is one of only four countries in Latin America rated “Not Free” in Freedom House’s 2012 survey, Freedom of the Press, and is ranked “Partly Free” in Freedom in the World 2012 and Freedom on the Net 2011.