Mexican drugs cartel beheads blogger in war on media

AFTER scaring much of the media into submission, Mexican drugs cartels appear to be turning their attention to the bloggers who dare to report their activities on the internet.
 
The body of a website moderator was discovered on Wednesday at the border town of Nuevo Laredo. He was handcuffed and had been tortured and beheaded. His corpse was left next to a sign that read: "This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn't report on the social networks," according to the Houston Chronicle.
 
The 35-year-old man was identified only by his internet nickname of Rascatripas – or Scratcher. He was reportedly the moderator of a website that highlighted the activities of the Los Zetas cartel.
 
He is the fourth blogger to be killed in Nuevo Laredo in a matter of weeks. In late September the body of online journalist Mary Elizabeth Macias, who used the nickname Girl of Laredo, was found decapitated at the same spot.
 
Earlier that month the mutilated bodies of two other people were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge in the city (above). A sign said they had been killed because of their online activities.
 
The ruthless Los Zetas cartel has even managed to scare off the usually fearless hacking group Anonymous. They backed down from a threat to publish information on Zeta collaborators last week after the cartel promised to murder 10 people for every name it published.
 
"This moves the operation from being a risk to knowing that I would be murdering people," a member of Anonymous told The Guardian.
 
With 80 journalists killed in the past 10 years, much of the Mexican media now avoid covering the activities of the cartels. "Reporters who choose to ignore the drug trafficking scene are usually safe," Michael Forbes, editor-in-chief of the Guadalajara Reporter newspaper, told Helena Hyvonen of journalism.co.uk. ·