Journalist shot dead in Mexico ahead of general elections; authorities did not respond to his request for protection

Mexico City: Jose Guadalupe Chan, a reporter for a news website in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, has been shot dead, the state’s prosecutor and the site Chan worked for said on Saturday. [caption id=“attachment_4640171” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] People place photos of murdered journalists next to the national flag to protest against the killings on May 24, 2017. REUTERS[/caption] Chan — at least the sixth Mexican journalist to be killed this year — was at a bar in the indigenous community of Felipe Carillo Puerto when he was attacked by an unknown person. “The cause of death was bullet wounds,” the Quintana Roo prosecutor said in a statement. Chan was a correspondent for the digital weekly Playa News, which is headquartered in Riviera Maya, near the resort city of Cancun. His killing comes ahead of Sunday’s general election in which voters will fill more than 18,000 positions, including the president and federal legislators. The election has been marked by a high level of violence, with more than 130 politicians murdered as of Friday, according to a tally by consultancy Etellekt. Ruben Pat of Playa News told AFP that Chan recently told him that he had received death threats and had asked for protection from authorities but did not receive a response. Chan was 35 years old and married with two children, Pat said.