Miguel López said his family’s killings came at the end of a series of previous threats, intimidations and close calls. Once, a decapitated head was thrown outside his father’s house.
Miguel Angel López Solana (Left)
A photojournalist from the Mexican state of Veracruz is seeking political asylum in the U.S. after three family members, two of them also journalists, were killed last year.
Miguel Angel López Solana, 30, a photographer for local newspaper Notiver and a correspondent for Mexican national daily La Jornada, said he and his wife decided to seek asylum after several other colleagues and close friends were killed this month.
The killings are the latest in a recent string of fatal attacks against members of the press in the southeastern port state.
Early in the morning on June 20, 2011, López’s father, mother and brother were gunned down and killed at their home.
His father Miguel Angel López Velasco, 55, was a prominent columnist at Notiver. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the father was a former deputy editor of Notiver, edited the newspaper’s police section and regularly wrote about politics and security issues.
His brother Misael López Solana, 21, was a photographer with the same newspaper.
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