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The Life of Pablo Morrugares Parraguirre - by Karla Silva

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    187967

    • Karla Silva at Pima Community College
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    PM Noticias was founded by Pablo Morrugares, who was the main editor of the website. This website was generally known for covering local news, politics, and crime around the city/state of Guerrero (CPJ. 2020). In the beginning of 2020, he covered a lot about the effects that the Covid-19 pandemic had on the state of Guerrero, which some people did not agree on. His success came from his news reports since he had a background in the Mexican government that allowed him to dig deeper into the news he was publishing. Pablo was also not scared of the trouble he could be facing by reporting these kinds of events in Guerreros most dangerous and controversial city. Little did he know, though,  he was digging up his own grave by doing so.

    Before opening up his own website, Pablo was under the administration of Jose Luis Abarca, who was involved in the Mexican government, working as a spokesman for him. On November 4, 2014, Jose Luis was in a huge controversy when he was arrested for being involved in the abduction and assassination of 43 college students on September of the same year. That caused many riots and threats to anyone that was close to the mayor, including Pablo Morrugares.  “Local media reported that threats against Morrugares had been displayed on banners hung by roadsides, a tactic frequently used by drug gangs in Mexico” (AP, 2020). Morrugares was given police protection in 2016, after he and his wife escaped gunmen shooting at their car one night as they were heading home. They were placed in a safe house from 2018 to the end of 2019. When 2020 came, he decided to leave the safe house on his own, but was given two bodyguards in case there was another threat against him.

    On August 2, 2020, right before 1AM , two heavily armed men walked into a restaurant firing more than 50 shots at Pablo, who died instantly. A police officer, who was his bodyguard as well, also died in the attack (CPJ, 2020). The media had a lot to say about this occurrence but the main question was, what drove those men to do this? Two months before this happened, “Pablo was threatened in a facebook video by a criminal gang from Iguala, according to journalist Omar Bello Pineda that is part of the Mexican Association of Displaced and Attacked journalists” (CPJ, 2020). Before his assassination, Morrugares was also reporting about some crime activity outside of a supermarket that involved two criminal gangs fighting for territory. This was another reason to think that all of these events tie back to the reason for his death.

    Sadly, none of this has stopped the killings of journalists around the globe. “In 2019, 10 journalists were murdered in Mexico, according to the NGO Reporters Without Borders. More than 100 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, with only a fraction of those crimes resulting in convictions” (MP, 2020). Most of these numbers have doubled since organized crime gangs have increased in the Mexico region. The sheer thought of this happening and nothing big being done about it is absolutely heartbreaking, especially for the family of the victims. In Pablo’s case, 8 suspects were arrested for having connections to his murder. The Guerreros state prosecutor’s office announced that the guys connected to Pablo’s murder were in Iguala, hiding in a safe house. At that location, they saw a burning car that could have possibly been used in his killing. To this day, they still don’t know who the main killer is.

    REFERENCES
     

     Associated Press. (2020, August 3). “Journalist and police guard killed in southern Mexico.” AP NEWS. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://apnews.com/article/police-jo...d07d585590c4fb

    MercoPress. (2020, August 3). “Mexican journalist and bodyguard murdered in Mexico, fifth so far this year.” Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://en.mercopress.com/2020/08/03...-far-this-year

     Committee to Protect Journalists. (2020, December 15). Pablo Morrugares Parraguirre. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://cpj.org/data/people/pablo-morrugares-parraguirre/

     Esteban, R. A. (2020, August 2). “Asesinan al periodista Pablo Morrugares en Iguala, Guerrero.” Grupo Milenio. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://www.milenio.com/policia/ases...guala-guerrero

     

    This page titled The Life of Pablo Morrugares Parraguirre - by Karla Silva is shared under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Karla Silva at Pima Community College.