Journalist files complaint against local businessman, northern Mexico.

Journalist files complaint against local businessman, northern Mexico.

A journalist in Northern Mexico has filed a complaint against a local businessman for assault and threats.

Journalist Víctor Rubén Hernández Guerrero, director of the Semana Ahora weekly newspaper in the state of Durango, says that he was assaulted and threatened in a restaurant by businessman Javier Quiñónez Ruiz.

Hernández Guerrero told CEPET, the Centre for Journalism and Public Ethics in Mexico, that on the 8th of November he was having breakfast in a restaurant when Javier Quiñónez Ruiz - former president of the Mexican Chamber of the Construction Industry - approached him and started insulting him.

“I asked him how he was doing, to which he replied, ‘Here, greeting a fucking reporter,’” says Hernández Guerrero.

“Despite that, I suggested that we have a coffee, that we hadn’t chatted in a while, but he told me, ‘I want to warn you to correct the contents of what you publish.’ He then hit me in the chest.

“When I reacted and turned to look at him, he punched me twice in the face,” said Hernández Guerrero.

The businessman who the journalist alleges attacked him is the brother of the substituting senator Juan Quiñónez Ruiz, about whom Semana Ahora has published critical coverage concerning his alleged ties to drug traffickers.

Report of this incident was originally circulated by IFEX, the international freedom of expression exchange. You can read more about the details here.