Francisco Alejandro Leyva Aguilar, a political columnist and former director of a local television station, was shot and killed in San Pablo Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico, on Tuesday. Assailants on a motorcycle opened fire on Leyva, also wounding a woman at the scene.
Oaxaca Governor Salomón Jara condemned the killing on social media. State prosecutors said they have obtained surveillance footage from the area and will seek assistance from the federal attorney general's office to identify and apprehend those responsible.
Leyva had been a vocal critic of the Oaxaca state government. His death makes him the sixth or seventh journalist killed in Mexico this year, according to varying tallies by press-freedom groups. Article 19 called on authorities to consider Leyva's journalistic work as a line of investigation, while the Inter American Press Association denounced the climate of insecurity and impunity facing Mexican reporters. The killing follows the recent murders of a security journalist in Puebla and the discovery of an abducted media director's body in Veracruz.