2012 on Track to Be the Deadliest on Record for Journalists

2012 on Track to Be the Deadliest on Record for Journalists


By Curtis Brainard

http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/journalists_killed_2012_press.php
June 29, 2012

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago - With 72 journalists
killed so far this year, 2012 is on pace to be the
deadliest on record, the International Press Institute

(IPI) announced here on Sunday.

The media freedom organization's executive director,
Alison Bethel McKenzie, choked up and struggled to speak
as she addressed the group's annual conference.

"From Somalia to Syria, the Philippines to Mexico, and
Iraq to Pakistan, reporters are being brutally targeted
for death in unparalleled numbers," she said.







The most lethal year so far in the 15 that IPI has been



keeping records was 2009, when 110 journalists died.



Last year was the second worst, with 102 deaths.







Syria, where peaceful protests have turned into a



violent civil war, has been the most dangerous country



in 2012, with 20 professional and citizen reporters,



both local and foreign, killed so far, according to McKenzie.







"It is deeply disturbing that in a year still massively



impacted by the once unimaginable-the overthrow of



brutal Arab regimes through people and media power-



journalists are dying on the job in record numbers," she said.







Unlike the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which



also monitors casualties, IPI counts accidental deaths,



such as those of five Indonesian journalists killed when



a plane crashed during a demonstration flight in May.



Still, the two groups are in rough accord on the violent



pace of 2012. According to CPJ, 46 journalists have died



so far this year, on track to match or surpass the 97



lost lives it recorded in 2009, the highest number in



the 20 years the group has kept statistics.







CPJ figures also finger Syria as the deadliest country



for journalists in 2012. As recently as Wednesday,



gunmen attacked a pro-government TV station near



Damascus, killing three journalists and four others,



according to the Associated Press.







"Local reporters have been savagely eliminated. Many



have been brutally tortured," said IPI's McKenzie of the



general situation in Syria.







Cruelty has been global, however. Mexico, whose gruesome



drug war made it the most dangerous country to cover



last year, according to IPI, continues to be a lethal



environment for the media. Two weeks ago, one of the



powerful cartels there kidnapped and murdered Victor



Manuel Baez Chino, who covered crime in the state of



Veracuz for a local edition of the national newspaper



Milenio. He was the fifth journalist be killed in the



state in the last six weeks, the AP reported.







A few days after Baez Chino's murder and halfway around



the world, assailants in Bangladesh stabbed to death



newspaper reporter Jamal Uddin while he visited a tea



stall, according to CPJ. The list goes on and on, and



even more journalists have only narrowly escaped having



their names added to it.







On Sunday, two unexploded hand grenades were lobbed onto



the premises of a privately owned TV news station in



Greece, The Wall Street Journal reported (the South East



Europe Media Organization, an affiliate of IPI, had



noted an increase in attacks against media in the



country a week earlier). And on Monday evening, gunmen



from the Pakistani Taliban opened fire on a privately



owned TV news station in Karachi, injuring two



employees, according to the BBC.







Other forms of press intimidation-from kidnapping in



Honduras, to a beating in Peru, to imprisonment in



Ethiopia-continue to plague news organizations as well,



IPI reports.







At the group's conference this week, special envoys from



the United Nations, the Organization for Security and



Co-operation in Europe, the Organization of American



States, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples'



Rights issued a joint declaration calling for



international mechanisms to address crimes against



freedom of expression.







"Impunity is winning," UN Special Rapporteur on the



right to freedom of opinion and expression Frank La Rue



told journalists.







Sadly, he's right, and if governments around the world



don't take immediate and strong action to curb violence



against the press, 2012 will be remembered as the



deadliest year in media history.







Disclosure: IPI paid for my travel and lodging to attend



the conference, where I hosted a panel on covering the



environment, part of which addressed recent reports that



journalists on that beat are also under increasing threat.