Reporter flees Playa del Carmen mayor's office after being tortured

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, QRoo. (apro).- After receiving multiple blows that put his life at risk, reporter Hilario Alfonso Cruz Lara fled Puerto Aventuras, a borough located in the tourist municipality of Playa del Carmen.

The attack occurred last Sunday afternoon in the town, governed by Gilberto Gómez Martínez, a union leader from the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), who first allied himself with the PRI-PAN and then with Morena to remain at the head of the administration of the aforementioned municipality.

On Sunday, the day of the judicial election, Cruz Lara was heading to a polling station to vote when he was intercepted and deprived of his liberty by several individuals driving motorcycle taxis—pochitaxis, as they are known locally.

“They abruptly took me off and forced me into a green area. They hit me, they kicked me. There were four guys. Three of them were threatening me at the back door of the mototaxi (…) the driver took out a board and slammed me, hit me with a board, hit me 10 times. They told me it was because I was mean, that it was so I'd stop talking or criticizing Mayor Gilberto Gómez Martínez in the press, and that this was a first warning, that the second time they were going after my family,” Hilario Alfonso told Proceso from a location outside of Quintana Roo where he is sheltering.

The reporter attributed this attack to his coverage of suspected acts of corruption in Puerto Aventuras, a municipality located within the municipality of Playa del Carmen, near the Riviera Maya hotel corridor.

For these events, the victim filed a criminal complaint with the local Prosecutor's Office, which was recorded under report number 4597/2025.

He immediately left the organization, where he had been a reporter for the local news website Informativo Puerto Aventuras for seven years. He thus joined the list of journalists displaced by the daily violence experienced in various parts of the country.

"My thought is that if we, as journalists and communicators, raise our voices and they do this to us, what can they do to an ordinary citizen?" he added.

The Ministry of the Interior's Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists has been notified of the attack, Cruz Lara said.

Likewise, another complaint is being filed with the Attorney General's Office (FGR) for crimes against freedom of expression.