Well-known Mexican TV news anchor survives shooting attack
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns a shooting attack on well-known Mexican TV news anchor Ciro Gómez Leyva as he was driving home on the night of 15 December in Mexico City, and calls on the authorities to ensure that this brazen murder attempt does not go unpunished.
In a message posted on social media, Gómez reported that, as he was approaching his home, two men on a motorcycle opened fire with the clear aim of killing him, and that he survived only because he was driving a bullet-proofed vehicle. Photos accompanying the message showed at least five bullet impacts in the bodywork, windshield and driver's window.
In a press conference, the Mexico City secretary of state for security confirmed reports that another vehicle had been involved in the attack on Gómez. He also announced that Gómez, who is a news anchor with Radio Fórmula and Imagen Televisión, would be assigned police bodyguards.
This attempt to murder one of the most prominent Mexican TV anchors in the heart of the capital is a reminder of the dangers to which journalists are exposed. Ciro Gómez Leyva is well known for criticising President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, from which he is the target of frequent verbal attacks. This episode shows that the government’s anti-media rhetoric can encourage unacceptable acts of violence like this one. It is high time that the Mexican government changed its attitude towards journalists. And it must now do everything possible to ensure that those responsible for this attack on Gómez are brought to justice
President López had delivered yet another of his frequent scathing comments about Gómez on day before the shooting attack, saying: “If you listened to no one else but Ciro Gómez Leyva (...) you would end up having a brain tumour.”
For the media, Mexico is the world’s most dangerous country at peace and 2022 has been deadliest year ever, with a total of 11 journalists killed, according to RSF’s newly released 2022 round-up of abuses and violence against media personnel throughout the world.
The day before the attack on Gómez, the son of Froylan Méndez Ferrer, a journalist who has exposed governmental corruption in the southern state of Oaxaca, was kidnapped and tortured in a vehicle before dumped left semi-conscious beside a river.
