BRUSSELS — At least 109 reporters and media workers were killed last year while on assignment, and Iraq remains the deadliest place for a journalist to work, the International Federation of Journalists said today.
In its annual report on press freedom, the group said covering stories in hot spots remained a “perilous” task for journalists, camera operators, producers and photographers. It also urged governments to “step up” efforts to stop the killing of journalists.
“The welcome relief brought about by the decline in the killings of journalists in 2008 has been short-lived,” said Aidan White, general secretary of the IFJ. “Ten colleagues died in January (2009) alone.”
The IFJ had reported 175 deaths of media workers in 2007, both deliberate and accidental. The group counts all people employed by media organizations who died performing their duties, including not only journalists but also interpreters and drivers.
Another group defending journalists’ rights, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, estimated in January that 86 journalists were killed worldwide in 2008.
White said Iraq remains the “deadliest” place to work despite a sharp drop in the murder rate of media staff. Sixteen journalists were killed in Iraq in 2008, compared with 65 in 2007. The decline was due to lessening sectarian violence there, the group said.
The risks remain high in Iraq, however, and the IFJ says 284 media staff are estimated to have died there since the U.S.-led military operation started in 2003. Most of those killed were Iraqi nationals.
An Iraqi sports editor, meanwhile, died Tuesday of shrapnel wounds from a roadside bombing months ago, the head of the Iraqi Journalists’ Union, Mouyyad al-Lami, reported today. Majid al-Sakr died after being in a coma since the Nov. 28 attack in Baghdad.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 136 journalists and 51 media support workers have been killed since 2003. Those figures don’t include al-Sakr.
There was no way to reconcile the two media groups’ death tolls.
The IFJ said it was working with other journalism groups to provide special safety training for media workers in Iraq.
The group also recorded 10 media deaths each in Mexico and India, and warned that Pakistan and the Philippines had become more dangerous for reporters.
Nine media workers died in the Philippines and seven in Pakistan last year. The IFJ said lawlessness and rampant corruption in the Philippines had led to more shootings of reporters covering corruption.
The IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 123 countries.
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