Matamoros newspaper drops drug violence coverage

A newspaper editor from a Mexican border city considered his future Thursday, a day after three armed men dragged him from his office, beat him and threatened his life before letting him go. Enrique Juarez Torres, editor of El Manana in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, said his kidnapping was a warning from the Gulf Cartel over publishing reports in Wednesday's newspaper about gunfights in the area that killed nine people. Thursday's edition of El Manana in Matamoros carried no mention of Juarez's kidnapping nor the dummy grenade tossed at the door of city hall. Both stories appeared in its sister paper, El Manana in Reynosa. This week, Matamoros and the towns along the Rio Grande north to Reynosa have been put on edge by rolling gunbattles between the rival cartel factions. The U.S. Consulate in Matamoros issued a warning to U.S. citizens on Wednesday of a "likelihood of increased violence in the Matamoros vicinity, reportedly between the Matamoros and Reynosa factions of the Gulf cartel." Unlike its sister paper in Reynosa, which published stories Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday about the violence, El Manana in Matamoros had published nothing until Wednesday. Juarez, who has been editor of the newspaper for five years, said the cartel had gotten his attention previously over stories related to drug activities. He said he now considered himself a "marked" man and left Matamoros Wednesday night. The Matamoros paper will once again avoid publishing stories that could upset the cartel, he said...more