As vehicles circled a busy roundabout in Tijuana’s Zona Río on Tuesday night, a nearly 15-minute video featuring late journalist Lourdes Maldonado was projected beneath the Cuauhtémoc monument at its center.
The video was shown during a candlelight vigil, organized by a group of Tijuana journalists, on the two-year anniversary of Maldonado’s murder.
In it, journalists continued their demand for justice, showing images of Maldonado asking the Mexican president for help, as well as her speech during a vigil to honor local photojournalist Margarito Martínez, who was killed about a week before her own murder.
The veteran journalist was fatally shot outside her house Jan. 23, 2022. Three people have been sentenced to 20 and 24 years for the murder, but to date, the person who ordered the killing is still at large.
Maldonado, 68, was the second journalist killed in Tijuana in the span of a week. On Jan. 17, 2022, Martínez, 49, was shot to death outside his home on his way to work.
In Martínez’ case, two men received 25-year sentences. A third defendant, who prosecutors say ordered the murder on someone else’s command, chose to take his case to trial. His next hearing is slated for next month after being postponed two times.
“(It has been) two years of impunity, because we still don’t have the people who ordered the murders,” said Sonia de Anda, a member of the #YoSíSoyPeriodista collective in Tijuana.
Journalist Sonia De Anda demands justice for Lourdes Maldonado during the vigil.
(Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The video projected during the vigil started with footage from a 2019 press conference in Mexico City that Maldonado attended hoping the Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador could assist her amid a labor dispute with a TV station owned by former Baja California Gov. Jaime Bonilla. Maldonado told the president that she even feared for her life.
Bonilla — now a Baja California senator — has publicly denied being involved in the murder.
In April 2022, Mexico’s former undersecretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Ricardo Mejía Berdeja, said that a possible motive for the murder was that she had denounced drug dealers operating in her neighborhood.
An image of Lourdes Maldonado sits near some candles.
(Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
In October 2022, then-Baja California Attorney General Ricardo Iván Carpio said that no line of investigation had been ruled out.
So far, authorities have not been able to determine the motive for the murder.
In Martínez’s case, prosecutors have said that his murder was likely the result of a mistaken belief that he was responsible for information published both in a weekly newspaper and on social media that exposed a criminal leader.
That suspected leader, known as “El Cabo 20,” is currently facing charges in the killing of another man in Tijuana. Carpio has previously accused El Cabo 20 as the alleged mastermind, but he has not been charged in Martínez’s case.
Tijuana journalist said they are still waiting for answers.
“Half justice is not justice,” De Anda said last week during the governor’s weekly press conference, reading a statement on behalf of her colleagues. “We feel outraged and aggrieved with the lack of real justice for both of them,” she added.
Tijuana photojournalist Margarito Martinez, photographed in Tijuana on Oct. 3, 2019.
(John Gibbins/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
De Anda questioned how much more time prosecutors need to solve both crimes.
“The governor reiterates her commitment to move forward with the investigations,” Baja California Secretary General of Government, Alfredo Álvarez, responded on the governor’s behalf. Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Avila did not attend her weekly presser due to a work trip in Sweden.
Baja California Attorney General María Elena Andrade, who took office five months ago, said of both cases that “the investigation is complex” and added that progress has been made.
“There’s still work to be done,” Andrade said. “We are looking for more people who could be involved as the masterminds and that is what we are working on.”
From 2000 to date, 163 journalists have been murdered in Mexico, according to the independent organization Article 19.
De Anda said Tuesday that they will not cease in their demand for justice.
“Every time there’s an anniversary or freedom of speech celebration, we are going to be reminding them that they have a pending debt,” De Anda said.
Mourners light candles to remember fellow slain journalists.
(Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
