86 journalists killed in deadly year for world media

PARIS -- At least 86 journalists were killed around the world in 2007, the highest number since 1994, with Iraq, Somalia and Pakistan topping the list of most dangerous places, according to a report released Wednesday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

More than half of the victims -- 48 -- were journalists from the Middle East and Africa, while 17 came from Asia, 12 from Africa, seven from the Americas and two from Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Twenty media assistants were also killed in connection with their work, compared to 32 last year, according to the press watchdog which says 90 percent of all such killings habitually go unpunished.

The death toll among journalists has well over doubled since 2002, reaching its highest level since the record violence of 1994, when 103 journalists were killed, nearly half of them in the Rwandan genocide.

Iraq remained the world's deadliest country for media workers, with 47 killed last year and at least 207 since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

"No country has ever seen more journalists killed than Iraq... more than in the Vietnam War, the fighting in ex-Yugoslavia, the massacres in Algeria or the Rwanda genocide," RSF said.
RSF said the "the Iraqi and US authorities -- themselves guilty of serious violence against journalists -- must take firm steps to end these attacks."

Somalia was the second deadliest country for the press, with eight journalists killed as fighting pitted Islamist militants against Somalia's transitional government and its ally Ethiopia.
Six journalists were killed in Pakistan, where RSF said suicide attacks and heavy fighting between the army and Islamist militants partly accounted for the deaths.
Sixty-seven journalists were kidnapped, and 14 are currently held hostage, all of then in Iraq, RSF said.

At least two journalists were arrested each day in 2007, with 135 journalists currently imprisoned worldwide, according to RSF which called for their "immediate release".
The highest number of overall arrests were in Pakistan (195), Cuba (55) and Iran (54).
Internet dissidents faced a tough year of repression, with 65 people currently detained over online reporting -- 50 of them in China -- and at least 2,676 websites and chat rooms either shut down or suspended.

RSF said the "fiercest censorship" occurred during the run-up to China's Communist Party congress when about 2,500 websites, blogs and forums were closed in the space of a few weeks.
Syria and Myanmar were also singled out for their attempts to limit the free flow of information on the Internet: Damascus for blocking access to more than 100 popular web services, and the Myanmar junta for cutting off Internet access during the October 2007 demonstrations by Buddhist monks.

Source: Inquirer.net