FOUR JOURNALISTS KIDNAPPED IN MEXICO

MEXICO CITY - Four reporters, including two from Televisa, Mexico's most
powerful television network, have apparently been held since Monday by
drug traffickers unhappy with coverage of last week's arrest of a
prison director who allegedly armed prisoners, provided them with cars
and then allowed them to leave the penitentiary to commit mass murders.

It is the latest development in a violent drama that surged almost two
weeks ago when gunmen killed 17 people at a party in the northern
Mexican city of Torreon. On Sunday, federal police arrested Margarita
Rojas, the head of a prison in the nearby city of Gomez Palacio, in
the state of Durango, and charged that she and prison guards had armed
and allowed the gunmen to leave the prison and carry out the killings.
At least 35 people have been gunned down in three such mass killings
this year in nearby Torreon.

The four reporters were kidnapped on Monday after photographing the
penitentiary where prisoners were protesting Ms. Rojas's arrest and
demanding her return. Later that day, the Durango Attorney General's
office said the two cars in which the four reporters had been
traveling were found burned about 10 minutes from the prison, but no
human remains were in them.

The kidnapping of the four journalists is the latest in a string of
violent incidents aimed at silencing the press along Mexico's northern
border, where drug cartels battle over routes and lucrative local
markets. Cities such as Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo live in a virtual
news blackout as reporters, threatened with kidnapping and death,
don't cover the stories.

George Grayson, a professor and expert on illegal drugs at the College
of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., estimates that drug cartels
are the primary suspects in about a dozen killings of
journalists.

"There are only a handful of papers I can name that give thorough
coverage of the drug cartels," he says.

Reporters at newspapers and television stations across northern Mexico
say that organized-crime groups often threaten journalists. In an
email, one journalist said criminals had imposed their rules on what
could and could not be published in the region.

The capture Monday of the four journalists had been largely kept
secret out of concern for their safety.

But on Tuesday, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission issued a
communique condemning the capture. That prompted Milenio Multimedia,
which runs a newspaper as well as a news station, and employs one of
the four missing journalists, to publish a story Wednesday about the
kidnapping.

"It's a very delicate, very complicated situation," said an executive
at Milenio. "We are being very careful with information. The lives of
our colleagues are in the balance."

He said the company would publish and broadcast more information about
the kidnapped reporters. Milenio was forced to reveal the kidnapping
after it was made public by the human-rights commission, the executive
said.

Executives at Televisa and El Vespertino, the newspaper where the
fourth reporter worked, couldn't be reached to comment Wednesday.

In its newspaper article Wednesday, Milenio reported that its abducted
cameraman, Jaime Canales, contacted his editor Monday at around 6 p.m.
and said the safety of the kidnapped reporters depended on the
television station broadcasting three videos from a website called
narcoblog, which showed local policemen who were being
interrogated.

Milenio said the criminal band who kidnapped the journalists "was
unhappy with the coverage" that the Gomez Palacio prison had received.

Milenio broadcast the three unedited videos, which lasted for 15
minutes, on Tuesday.

The newspaper said the videos show the policeman and others, detained
by the unnamed gang, denouncing links between the Zetas, a drug gang
that has been fighting other cartels for control of the area, with
police officials in the cities of Torreon, Gomez Palacio and Lerdo.

People with knowledge of the matter say the Gomez Palacio prison is
controlled by the Sinaloa cartel, which is engaged in a bloody turf
war with the Zetas.

After the broadcast of the videos, Mr. Canales called his editor and
told him he was unharmed, the Milenio executive said.

Mr. Grayson says criminal organizations have long been in control of
penitentiaries in Torreon and elsewhere.Many prisons, he says, are
home to what he calls "deluxe prisoners," inmates with connections to
drug cartels who are allowed to leave and even carry out crimes.

Human-rights organizations in Mexico have similarly struggled in how
to publicize criminal acts. Cristina Orozco, of the Coahuila office of
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said the group's office in
Mexico City had released a statement on its Web site about the event.

However, the news release wasn't on the site Wednesday after criticism
that the attention would endanger the reporters' lives. Milenio
published an editorial calling the commission's actions
"irresponsible" and a "disastrous," saying they had interfered with
kidnapping negotiations as other media had "opted for a few hours of
silence in solidarity."

[sidebar]

Turmoil in Torreon

Spate of 'Revenge Killings' Rattles a City in Northern
Mexico

- - Feb. 1, 2010: Ten killed during an armed attack inside 'Ferrie,' a
bar in the industrial city of Torreon, in northern Mexico.

- - May 15: Eight killed in an attack at 'Las Juanas,' another bar in
Torreon.

- - July 18: At least 17 people massacred at 1:30 in the morning during
a party in a tented patio atthe Italia Inn a hall in Torreon. A
partial list of the dead put the victims' ages between 20 and 38 years.

- - July 25: Authorities say they believe prisoners incarcerated in a
Torreon facility were responsible for carrying out all three assaults,
with the assistance of prison guards. According to news reports, the
prison director dispatched the inmates in official vehicles to carry
out the 'revenge killings.'

- - July 26: Four reporters kidnapped while visiting the prison in
nearby Gomez Palacio. Media organizations in Mexico observe a news
blackout on the kidnappings during negotiations with captors.

- - July 28: Mexican daily newspaper Milenio breaks the unofficial
silence, publishing an article that describes the kidnappings.
Negotiations continue.