VIENNA – The International Press Institute, or IPI, has called on Mexican officials to “aggressively investigate” the murders of two journalists in the northern part of that country.

In a communique, the IPI – a worldwide network of publishers and editors in the communications media, based in Vienna – noted the killings of Jose Luis “La Gata” Cerda Melendez, 33, the host of a program on national television network Televisa, and Luis Emanuel Ruiz Carrillo, 20, a reporter for the daily La Prensa.

Both journalists were shot to death after being kidnapped last Thursday evening when, upon leaving the Televisa studios in Monterrey along with Cerda’s cousin, Juan Roberto Gomez, several unknown men forced them into a vehicle.

The bodies of Ruiz and Gomez were discovered the next day near a highway, while police later found the body of Cerda with his hands tied and a fatal gunshot wound to the head, the statement said.

“We are saddened by these killings, and it is profoundly disturbing that the murder of journalists in Mexico continues unabated, said IPI director Alison Bethel McKenzie.

“We call on Mexican authorities to aggressively investigate these crimes, and all other attacks on and murders of journalists,” she went on to say.

“How many voices will it take before these ruthless killings – and the attack on press freedom and the people’s right to know that they represent – are stopped?” she asked.

Last month another journalist, Rodolfo Ochoa, was murdered.

In 2010, 12 journalists were killed, making Mexico the second-most-dangerous country for reporters in the world after Pakistan, where 15 members of the press were murdered, the IPI said. EFE