Mexican journalists protest violence, killing of reporter

May 17 (UPI) -- Mexican journalists protested this week against the violence facing those in their profession following the killing of drug trafficking and corruption reporter Javier Valdez Cárdenas.

Seven journalists have been killed in Mexico this year in the states of Veracruz, Chihuahua, Guerrero Morelos, Baja California, Jalisco and Sinaloa.

"Javier Baldez, one of the journalists and writers who covered with professionalism the terms off narcotrafficking in Sinaloa was killed; the bullet that he knew followed reached him," members of the Network of Veracruzan Journalists said during the protests on Tuesday.

In Mexico City, journalists marched with signs and chanted the phrases, "They are killing us" and "No to silence."

Since 1992, there have been 267 crimes against journalists -- 97 of which have gone unpunished, data from Mexico's attorney general shows. The Committee to Protect Journalists said 40 reporters have been killed in that time.

"Safe countries have reduced impunity, punished those responsible and have generated conditions of freedom for the journalistic exercise. Mexico has not," Ignacio Morales Lechuga, former Mexican Attorney General, wrote in an op-ed for El Universal Wednesday. "Neither journalists nor citizens want special security, the demand is one: put an end to impunity, and police, ministerial and judicial corruption on the rise."

Officials said Valdez Cárdenas, 50, was pulled from his car by a gunman and shot multiple times near his newspaper office in Sinaloa on May 8.