Sinaloa Bans Journalists from Reporting on Crime and Violence in One of Mexico's Most Corrupt and Violent Cartel-Controlled Areas

New laws in Sinaloa, Mexico are making it nearly illegal for journalists to report on crime and violence. Sinaloa also happens to be one of Mexico's most violent areas, and the state is the headquarters for the most powerful drug cartel in the nation -- the Sinaloa Cartel.

According to reports, the Sinaloa state Congress approved a law on Thursday that restricts journalists and reporters to reporting only on official government press releases about crime information. Journalists are no longer allowed to inspect the crime scene, nor can they record audio, video or take photographs of the scene.

The new regulations appear to be part of Mexico's newfound trend -- initiated by President Enrique Peña Nieto -- to sensor negative press about the drug wars and crime news in Mexico, in hope of attracting investors to the downtrodden nation.

Restricting the actions of reporters will drastically limit the any attempts to inform the public about mass murders, burial sites, cartel battles and other violent incidents that occur regularly, thanks to the thick entanglement the area has with the Mexican cartels.

And according to reporters, it will also limit any possible reports of the abuses by authorities, which tend to be a common occurrence within the corrupt innerworkings of the Mexican authorities.

“They want only the official version to get out,” said Javier Valdez, co-founder of Sinaloa’s most independent news source, Riodoce. “This is a huge attack on the freedom of expression.”

Sinaloa has the highest murder rate of any state in Mexico. It is widely considered the drug trafficking capital of Mexico, with the powerful Sinaloa Cartel running most of the operations in the area.

According to the Global Post, ever since former President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers and federal police to combat organized crime in 2006, the country has been ravaged by violence. As of 2013, an estimated 70,000 people have been killed in often brutal territorial warfare.