Víctor Manuel Báez

Víctor Manuel Báez Chino (died 14 June 2012) was a Mexican crime journalist and editor for the digital edition of the Milenio newspaper in Xalapa and an editor for the crime-oriented website Reporteros Policiacos. Báez was abducted 13 June 2012 and found murdered the next day in the main city square of Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.

While he was the fifth journalist killed in the state of Veracruz in a two-month period in 2012, he was the ninth journalists killed in Veracruz since March 2011 as a result of the Mexican drug war. At the time of his murder, six journalists had been killed in Mexico in 2012.

Career Báez was the editor of the crime section for the state digital edition of the national newspaper Milenio and an editor of the website Reporteros Policiacos.

He was a colleague of Regina Martínez Pérez, a Proceso crime reporter who was also killed in 2012.

Death

Impact The investigation was declared closed by the state, although press rights organizations and critics have rejected the investigators' reasoning.

After the Mexican navy captured drug cartel member Juan Carlos Hernández Pulido, it announced that evidence found at his arrest linked him to the murder of Ana Irasema Becerra Jiménez in Veracruz and three murdered journalists

Reactions Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO said, "I am deeply concerned about the murder of Víctor Manuel Báez Chino, and call on the authorities to ensure that this crime against freedom of expression, a fundamental human right, does not go unpunished. All too many brave Mexican journalists have been paying with their lives for society’s right to be kept informed. The impunity enjoyed by their murderers must be brought to an end."

A Committee to Protect Journalists spokesperson, said, "Perhaps the most devastating effect of this unprecedented wave of violence is the fact that people in Veracruz are being deprived of vital information of one of the issues that is obviously having a very serious effect in the lives of the people, which is the level of violence, the number of killings."