THE NUMBER OF JOURNALISTS who have died in conflict worldwide this year has been revealed.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has said that Pakistan is the deadliest nation for members of the press this year.
It said that at least 43 journalists were killed around the world while working, and that targeted murders declined but deaths during dangerous assignments reached their highest level on record.
Sixteen journalists were killed while on dangerous assignments, some of which were in countries where the Arab Spring uprisings were taking place.
Executive Director of the CPJ, Joel Simon, commented:
This is always a sombre occasion for us as we chronicle the grim toll, remember friends who have been lost, and recommit ourselves to justice. It’s also a time when we are asked questions about our research and why our numbers are different – invariably lower – than other organisations.
The CPJ has a database of journalists killed in 2011, which is broken down according to country.
There were 19 murders in 2011, which it says was the lowest total since 2002. This figure accounts for less than half of the deaths of journalists this year, whereas historically it would represent nearly 75 per cent of journalist deaths.
The CPJ mentions the death of Russian journalist Gadzhimurad Kamalov, the founder of the independent newspaper Chernovik, and the death of the Filipino radio commentator Romeo Olea as examples of murders in two countries “plagued by deadly, anti-press violence”.
Around 40 per cent of the overall death toll was made up of photographers and camera operators, around twice what it was in 1992 when fatality records first started being kept.
Combat situations claimed the life of eight journalists, including the photojournalists Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington, who were killed in Misurata.
Online journalists – who CPJ said have begun to constitute a greater proportion of front-line reporters – made up part of the death toll, with eight online journalists killed in 2011.
In Pakistan, 29 journalists have died in direct relation to their work in the past five years, and CPJ says the country is one of the worst for bringing the killers of journalists to justice.
Five journalists were killed in Iraq and in Libya respectively, three were killed in Mexico, one was killed in Somalia, two died in Bahraini government custody, and two were killed in Afghanistan.
Two journalists were reported missing in Mexico.
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