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MEXICO CITY — A Televisa station in northern Mexico was hit by a grenade attack earlier this week, according to local news reports.
No one was injured in the Sunday explosion at the Televisa facility in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, along the Texas border.
This isn’t the first time that Mexico’s top network has come under attack in northeastern Mexico, a hotbed of drug cartel activity. In August 2010, unidentified assailants detonated a car bomb outside a Televisa office in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas. The blast was so strong that it shook nearby buildings and knocked out power lines, causing the station’s signal to go down for several hours. There were no injuries, though the building suffered structural damage. That same month, a grenade was launched at a Televisa studio in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon.
Non-government organization Committee to Protect Journalists, known as CPJ, said on its website that the motive for the latest attack on Televisa is unknown and the incident has not been confirmed by the station, however, some media sources believe the assault may be an intimidation tactic ahead of Mexico’s July elections. Mexican media also is reporting that the Tamaulipas-based newspaper Expreso was rocked by a car bomb explosion this month, resulting in five people wounded.
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CPJ urged the Mexican government to investigate the attacks.
“As Mexico prepares for national elections, authorities must send a clear message that they will not tolerate attacks on vital democratic institutions such as the press, said Carlos Lauria, CPJ’s senior program coordinator for the Americas.
CPJ says more than 30 journalists have been killed or disappeared in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006.
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