El Universal columnist receives death threat on social media

The journalist Héctor de Mauleón received a death threat in a video published on social media earlier today.

In the video, which was uploaded to Twitter by the user @LiitleSado, the name of the journalist who's a regular columnist for EL UNIVERSAL, appears in writing on a piece of cardboard with several bullets lying over it. A voice from an unidentified man says:

“Mr. Héctor de Mauleón, the commander Z-24 is upset with your article about the graves. We're asking you to kindly take the article down from your page and to stop mentioning “Los Zetas.” Thank you very much, sir.”

Earlier today, Héctor de Mauleón published in his EL UNIVERSAL column the article “La década de las fosas (The Decade of Clandestine Graves),” in which he discussed the over 62 graves and 148 bodies found in Veracruz in the last decade.

In the article, de Mauleón mentions that a civil rights group, which consists of people who've been looking for family members that vanished over 6 years, found a grave thanks to a confidential and anonymous source who claims to have witnessed members of the Los Zetas cartel disposing of their victims in the area.

This isn't the first time EL UNIVERSAL's Héctor de Mauleón is threatened for his journalistic work. In fact, just a few months ago in September the journalist and writer received several threats on social media after publishing an article about authorities “losing” a popular and affluent neighborhood in Mexico City to criminals and violence.