Many reporters have been murdered and disappeared. Nowadays Mexico is the second most dangerous country to be a journalist, even though it is not officially in a state of war. Administrators of tweeter accounts have also been threatened and some of them brutally killed, their cadavers displayed as a warning to others who might be thinking of collaborating with the task of informing their communities ‘under the radar’ about the places where shootings and suspicious rounds or parades of vehicles are happening.
Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro, who reported under the alias “NenaDLaredo”, was brutally murdered on the 24 of September of 2011, her body left for with a warning that whoever attempted a similar feat in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, would be condemned to the same fate. Tamaulipas is a state where, due to the level of violence towards journalists from both the authorities and organized crime, hardly any reporting gets done and/or published.
However useful the information provided by Valor… has been, the sort of facts it made available point towards a style of source more akin to a military or paramilitary intelligence, than what other twitter users often publicize. Hernandez’s article is one of the few that question -and with grounds- the possibility of it being a counterintelligence strategy rather than a brave and concerned citizen behind the accounts.
To access Daniel Hernández's article:
Valor por Tamaulipas's facebook account (which may still be active):
http://www.facebook.com/ValorPorTamaulipas?ref=ts&fref=ts
Twitter account:
@valortamaulipas
#vxt
