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The Inter‑American Press Association (IAPA) issued a stark assessment of press freedom in Mexico on October 25, 2026, after closing its 82nd General Assembly in Bogotá. The organization said it had confirmed three journalist murders directly linked to reporting, flagged multiple other killings as under investigation, and documented a widening pattern of intimidation that includes actions by state agents and restrictive local laws.
Three murders the IAPA says are linked to journalism
The IAPA named three journalists whose deaths it said were directly tied to their work: Josué Martínez Contreras, director of Noticias San Martín Texmelucan, who was shot dead in July in Puebla; Francisco Alejandro Leyva Aguilar, a columnist and former head of Oaxaca’s public radio and television network killed in July at a restaurant in Oaxaca; and photographer and content creator Ricardo Zúñiga Rosas, murdered in August in Puebla. The association also noted six additional killings it said were under investigation and urged authorities to keep those cases open to reassessment as new evidence emerges.
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International press‑freedom groups including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders have joined the IAPA in demanding exhaustive probes that consider the victims’ professional activity as a primary motive rather than an afterthought. Reporters Without Borders ranks Mexico 122nd out of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index and places Mexico at 160 on the index’s safety‑specific indicator, the poorest score among the five dimensions measured.
State intimidation: the Navy and a seized drone investigation
The IAPA report documented episodes of intimidation that go beyond criminal networks. In Tamaulipas, two journalists said personnel from Mexico’s Secretary of the Navy coerced them into deleting drone footage they had recorded of an apparent fuel spill in the Pánuco River near a PEMEX facility. The outlet Article 19 condemned the incident, and the IAPA cited it as an example that pressure on reporters can come from uniformed state actors as well as from organized crime.
‘Ley Serrano’ and arrests under an AI law
Legal measures also featured in the IAPA’s findings. The association highlighted a November 2025 reform in the San Luis Potosí penal code — widely dubbed the “Ley Serrano” — that criminalized certain improper uses of artificial intelligence, including AI‑generated content intended to simulate a person’s voice, identity or appearance, and carried penalties of one to six years in prison. On May 21, 2026, authorities arrested three communicators under the law: journalists Eréndira Reyes Aguillón and her daughter Alejandra Hermosillo, and content creator Christian Herrera. The CPJ publicly called for their release on May 25, describing the arrests as an attack on press freedom. The state congress repealed the law in July 2026, but the IAPA said the arrests, legal costs and a chilling effect on local coverage had already occurred.
The IAPA also flagged a government‑produced document from the legal office of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration that identified journalists, commentators and analysts as alleged participants in a digital influence network. Press groups including Article 19 and the Alianza de Medios MX warned the publication of such a list could intimidate reporters; the government characterized the document as an analysis of social media dynamics and denied any intent to stigmatize the press. Separately, the IAPA raised concerns about new audience‑rights regulations approved on August 26, saying some provisions could enable government interference in editorial decisions — an interpretation President Sheinbaum rejected.
Impunity and the wider hemispheric context
For the IAPA and other press‑freedom organizations, the root problem is structural impunity. Citing Reporters Without Borders, the IAPA noted that 169 journalists have been murdered in Mexico over the past two decades and that fewer than 1% of those cases have been fully prosecuted to conviction. The organization said that when killings go unpunished, the incentive to stop the violence is absent.
The IAPA placed Mexico’s situation in a broader crisis across the Americas. It reported nine journalists killed in the hemisphere since its April midyear meeting — three in Mexico, two in Colombia, two in Guatemala, one in Haiti and one in Peru — and pointed to other recent threats including deadly natural disasters that claimed media workers’ lives and large‑scale digital attacks on reporters in Brazil. The IAPA’s message to Mexican authorities emerging from Bogotá was clear: investigate suspected journalist murders as journalism‑related crimes from the outset, prosecute those responsible and strengthen protection systems so they match the real risks reporters face.
