“ARTICLE 19 requires the Government of Veracruz, together with the Attorney General of Veracruz, to coordinate urgent search actions with the Ministry of the Interior and National Commission for the Search of Missing Persons in Mexico to alive the journalist Miguel Ángel Anaya Castillo, in accordance with the approved protocol for the search for missing persons,” said the organization.
In addition to not locating the journalist, Pánuco online publications were eliminated in recent days.
According to Artico 19, the journalist was subject to intimidation and harassment since February of this year.
On February 28, three subjects allegedly presented themselves at the home of Anaya Castillo, in Pánuco, Veracruz, where they asked one of his relatives that the communicator left because they had for him “a message from the municipal president.”
The journalist noticed that the subjects behaved and one of them held an object within that type of bag, so I question them.
They replied that they wanted to give him “a message” and they insisted on leaving: “It’s not bad, come, let’s talk.”
Anaya Castillo requested police support through 911 and, noting the arrival of a patrol, the subjects decided to retire.
“The above happened after, on February 26, the journalist covered a demonstration in the municipality of Pánuco in which activists and inhabitants of the place were mobilized to demand from the City Council authorities to stop the use of a sanitary landfill.
“According to citizen complaints, this has caused residents to be nursing due to a defective health management,” he said 19.
The journalist also told the organization that in December 2024 people who claimed to work with the City Council asked him to meet with the purpose of offering money and “being on the payroll” in exchange for not publishing critical notes about the current administration.
According to the study ‘Pending Rights: Sexenal report on freedom of expression and access to information in Mexico’, Veracruz placed, with 199 cases, in the fifth place of the entities with more aggressions against journalists during the six-year term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), of a total of 3,408 aggressions against journalists throughout the country.
Article 19 asked the State Commission for the attention and protection of journalists in Veracruz to follow up on the case of Miguel Ángel and offer him the necessary measures to guarantee their protection.
