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2007 second deadliest year for journalists, says watchdog group
NEW YORK, USA (AP) — A media watchdog group said Monday that 64 journalists in 17 countries have died while covering the news in 2007 — making it the deadliest year in more than a decade.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said in an annual report that Iraq led the list for the fifth year in a row with 31 deaths. That is one fewer than a year ago. Somalia was second with seven dead in 2007, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka each recorded five deaths.
The global figure of 64 was an increase of eight over the previous year and two short of the record 66 set in 1994, when strife ripped Algeria, Bosnia and Rwanda. The New Yorkbased committee said it was still investigating 22 other cases from 2007 to determine if they were “work-related”.
Murder reached its peak in Iraq, where most of the 124 reporters, photographers and editors, and 49 other news employees killed since the US invasion in 2003, were slain after being abducted.
“Working as a journalist in Iraq remains one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director. “Members of the press are being hunted down and murdered with alarming regularity.”
Of the 31 killed in Iraq in 2007, 24 were murdered, the report said. All but one were Iraqi citizens, including nine working for international news organisations such as The Associated Press, Reuters, The Washington Post, ABC News and The New York Times. “These journalists gave their lives so that all of us could be informed about what is happening in Iraq,” Simon said.
He said the seven deaths in Somalia reflected an “increasingly deteriorating environment” for journalists.
Suicide bombers killed three of the five journalists slain in Pakistan, one of them during violence sparked by the return of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Three died in Sri Lanka when air force jets bombed the rebel Tigers’ radio station.
NEW YORK, USA (AP) — A media watchdog group said Monday that 64 journalists in 17 countries have died while covering the news in 2007 — making it the deadliest year in more than a decade.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said in an annual report that Iraq led the list for the fifth year in a row with 31 deaths. That is one fewer than a year ago. Somalia was second with seven dead in 2007, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka each recorded five deaths.
The global figure of 64 was an increase of eight over the previous year and two short of the record 66 set in 1994, when strife ripped Algeria, Bosnia and Rwanda. The New Yorkbased committee said it was still investigating 22 other cases from 2007 to determine if they were “work-related”.
Murder reached its peak in Iraq, where most of the 124 reporters, photographers and editors, and 49 other news employees killed since the US invasion in 2003, were slain after being abducted.
“Working as a journalist in Iraq remains one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director. “Members of the press are being hunted down and murdered with alarming regularity.”
Of the 31 killed in Iraq in 2007, 24 were murdered, the report said. All but one were Iraqi citizens, including nine working for international news organisations such as The Associated Press, Reuters, The Washington Post, ABC News and The New York Times. “These journalists gave their lives so that all of us could be informed about what is happening in Iraq,” Simon said.
He said the seven deaths in Somalia reflected an “increasingly deteriorating environment” for journalists.
Suicide bombers killed three of the five journalists slain in Pakistan, one of them during violence sparked by the return of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Three died in Sri Lanka when air force jets bombed the rebel Tigers’ radio station.
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