UN, AFP launch prize to honor slain Mexican journalists

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published 7 years ago

The UN and AFP launched an award Thursday to honor journalists who risk their lives to cover human rights abuses in Mexico, in tribute to two celebrated reporters murdered last year.

The Breach-Valdez Prize will honor journalists who follow in the footsteps of their slain colleagues Miroslava Breach and Javier Valdez, two of the more than 100 reporters murdered since 2000 in one of the world's most dangerous countries for the press.

Its aim is "to recognize the careers of Mexican journalists who have distinguished themselves in defending human rights," said Giancarlo Summa, Director of the United Nations Information Center in Mexico.

Valdez, an award-winning journalist who covered Mexico's powerful drug cartels, was gunned down last May in broad daylight outside the offices of Riodoce, the newspaper he co-founded in Culiacan, the capital of his native Sinaloa state.

He was also a long-time AFP collaborator.

Breach, a correspondent for Mexican daily La Jornada in the state of Chihuahua, on the US border, was a celebrated investigative journalist known for hard-hitting reports on links between politicians and organized crime.

She was shot dead in broad daylight last March as she drove her son to school.

The annual prize is also co-sponsored by UNESCO, the Ibero-American University and the French embassy in Mexico. - AFP