Former Mexican Mayor Arrested for Ordering Attack on Journalist

MEXICO CITY – Former Silao Mayor Enrique Benjamin Solis Arzola was arrested by prosecutors in Guanajuato, a state in central Mexico, for his alleged role in the attack on journalist Karla Silva in September 2014, the Articulo 19 press rights organization said.

“The signatory organizations celebrate the capture by the state Attorney General’s Office and we expect the highest standard of justice on the part of the state courts,” Articulo 19 said in a statement.

Silva was savagely beaten by several men in retaliation for a story published in the daily El Heraldo about mismanagement in the city.

“The physical attack endangered her life and irreparably affected her personal and psychosocial development as a woman and a journalist,” the press rights group said.

Photographs during the attack showed the reporter with a bloody face and a gash on her forehead.

Several of the assailants were arrested on assault, harassment and robbery charges.

There were indications from the start that Solis Arzola, a member of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was the intellectual author of the attack, but he had not been prosecuted until now, Articulo 19 said.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in the world for members of the media.

A total of 102 journalists, according to Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression, or FEADLE, figures, were murdered in Mexico between 2000 and 2014.

Some 356 attacks on female journalists were registered between 2009 and 2015, Articulo 19 said.