Mexico City, Jul 6 (IANS/EFE): Amnesty International has asked the Mexican government to guarantee the security of a journalist who has received death threats.

In an urgent request made public Tuesday, AI asked its supporters to write in any language to the Mexican government demanding that it improve the protection of Lydia Cacho, since "her security is seriously feared for".

The threats received by the reporter included an e-mail sent to the Lydia Cacho Foundation in Spain June 14 and an anonymous telephone call June 17 in Mexico.

Both messages "referred to her work as a journalist and warned Lydia Cacho to keep her mouth shut or they would kill her. Besides that, they told her that that was the final warning" she would receive, noted the human rights organisation in a communique.

Criminal complaints in the matter have been filed with the authorities in Mexico and Spain.

AI noted that the journalist has been the target of threats since 2005, when she published a book, "Los demonios del Eden" (The Demons of Eden), that exposed paedophile rings operating under the protection of Mexican politicians and business leaders.

After exposing the crimes of Lebanese-born Mexican businessman Jean Succar Kuri and others, Cacho was the victim of kidnapping, torture and police abuses, which she revealed in another book titled "Memorias de una infamia" (Memoirs of an Infamy).

In the following years the dissuasive messages continued, "on occasions as a reprisal for her work as a journalist and human rights defender in a women's shelter in Cancun", AI said.