Mexico July 9, 2004

H.E. Vincente Quesada Fox
President
Residencia Oficial de los Pinos
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
11850 Mexico D.F.
Mexico
Fax: (011.525) 515-5729

Your Excellency:

For the second time this year, a working journalist has been murdered in Mexico, apparently because of
his reporting on drug trafficking and corruption in the Tijuana area.

On June 22, Francisco Javier Ortiz Franco, a member of the staff of the weekly, Zeta, was shot dead outside his office by a masked gunman, aided by an accomplice. Franco@quot;s two children were in his car at the time of the attack. The murderers drove off in a car, which they later abandoned. Franco was well known for his reports on the drug trade and corruption along the border with the United States. It seems clear that he was killed because of his articles on these illegal activities.

The murder of Franco was the third such attack against Zeta. On April 28, l988, the co-founder of the paper, Hector Felix Miranda, also a journalist, was murdered — and more recently, on November 27, 1997, the editor, Blancornelas, was injured in a murder attempt in which his bodyguard was killed. On March 19 of this year, another Mexican journalist, Roberto Javier Mora Garcia, who also exposed drug trafficking along the American border, was murdered for reporting the news.

In addition to these killings, one journalist in Mexico was kidnapped in 2004, and 15 others threatened, assaulted or subjected to pressure. On May 24, 2004, Leodegario Aguilar Lucas, director of Mundo Politico magazine was kidnapped from his home, quite possibly in retaliation for articles he wrote on local corruption. Also in the last few months, there have been threats against 15 other journalists in places as widespread as Jalapa in Veracruz state, Colima in Colima state, Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua and Cuernavaca in Morelos state.

Members of the Overseas Press Club of America find it very dismaying that such violations of freedom of the press can happen under your presidency. We are well aware of how relations between Mexico and the United States have improved since you took office. However, these attacks on journalists cast a very disturbing shadow on Mexico@quot;s world reputation and are bound to injure relations with the United States unless corrective measures are taken.

We are fully aware that you have expressed your personal interest in punishing those responsible for these violations of Mexican law. We earnestly hope that your government will continue its efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Respectfully yours,

George Bookman Norman A. Schorr
Freedom of the Press Committee
cc: Juan Jose Bremer Martino
Ambassador of Mexico to the U.S.
Embassy of Mexico
1911 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Fax: (202) 728-1698

Ambassador Jorge Lopez Navarrete
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations
2 United Nations Plaza, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10017
Fax: (212) 688-8862

Antonio O. Garza, Jr.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico
Embassy of the United States of America
Paseo de la Reforma 305
Col. Cuauhtemoc 06500
Mexico
Fax: (011.525.5) 5080-2005