World Press Freedom Day 2017

Oscar A. Cantú is a native of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México. He practiced law and promoted foreign investment in Mexico as a part of a program to attract new industry. In 1978, at the age of 28, he co-founded the newspaper El Universal de Ciudad Juárez, wich was taken over by the federal government. By 1990 he regained the control of it and founded Norte de Ciudad Juárez.

Mr Cantú has been very involved and socially committed with the community. He has been on the board of directors of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, and of the Technological Institute of Ciudad Juárez and is the founder of the North Development Youth Program, and the Observatory for Security and Citizen Coexistence. In addition, Cantú is president of the children association Los Ojos de Dios (The Eyes of God), an association that takes care of children with cerebral palsy, and also President of the Cancer Association of Juárez. His objectives has always been to increase the quality of life of the community. His commitment to society has been to portray the truth for a common good, justice, freedom and the rule of law.

On 2 April 2017, after one of his journalists, Ms Miroslava Breach, was assassinated, Mr Cantú shut down the newspaper as a protest because of the high risk involved in the exercising of critical and counterweight journalism, and the lack of security and guarantees for the journslists, combined with levels of widespread impunity.