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Committee to Protect Journalists
Journalist Deaths Hit Decade Peak.
Half in Iraq; record number in Somalia
New York, December 18, 2007—Journalists were killed in
unusually high numbers in 2007, making it the deadliest year
for the press in more than a decade, according to the
Committee to Protect Journalists’ end-of-year analysis.
Worldwide, CPJ found 64 journalists were killed in direct
connection to their work in 2007—up from 56 last year—and it
is investigating another 22 deaths to determine whether they
were work-related. CPJ has recorded only one year with a
higher death toll: 1994, when 66 journalists were killed, many
in conflicts in
Algeria, Bosnia, and Rwanda.
In
Africa, 10 journalists were killed in relation to
their work this year, the highest number since 1999 when 13
media workers died, including 10 in
Sierra Leone's civil war. Ten years later,
Somalia's
violent conflict claimed the lives of seven newsmen, making
the Horn of Africa nation the second-deadliest country for the
media worldwide.
“Horrific violence in Iraq overshadowed the increasingly
deteriorating environment for the media in Somalia,” said
Simon. “Journalists reporting in Somalia face great risks
every day.”
Included in the seven deaths in Somalia are the back-to-back
assassinations of two prominent journalists.
Mahad Ahmed Elmi,
director of Capital Voice radio in
Mogadishu,
died after being shot four times in the head. Hours later, a
remotely detonated landmine took the life
Ali Iman Sharmarke,
co-owner of HornAfrik Media— Somalia's first independent
station—as he left Elmi’s funeral.
The assassinations of Elmi and Sharmarke marked a disturbing
pattern of targeting of local journalists for their coverage
of the conflict opposing the Somali transitional government
and its Ethiopian allies to Islamist insurgents in
war-shattered
Mogadishu.
Two prominent journalists also died in Eritrea, Africa's
leading jailer of journalists. Several sources in the Eritrean
diaspora diclosed to CPJ in February that
Fesshaye “Joshua” Yohannes,
the award-winning co-owner of
Eritrea's
once largest circulation daily Setit, died in one of
the country's secret prisons. Eritrean officials declined
comment, but Yohannes was among a dozen journalists held
incommunicado without charge or trial since September 2001.
In June,
Paulos Kidane, a
presenter with the state-controlled media, died in unknown
circumstances after attempting to cross Eritrea’s border into
Sudan with a group of asylum-seekers.
In Zimbabwe, violent
political unrest in March claimed the life of Edward Chikomba,
a veteran cameraman. Chikomba was found beaten to death
outside Harare two days after being abducted by a group of
armed men in a four-wheel drive vehicle.
For the fifth straight year, Iraq was the deadliest country in
the world for the press. Its 31 victims account for nearly
half of the 2007 toll. Most of the victims were targeted and
murdered, such as Washington Post reporter
Salih Saif Aldin,
who died in Baghdad from a single gunshot wound to the head.
In all, 24 deaths in Iraq were murders and seven occurred in
combat-related crossfire.
Unidentified gunmen, suicide bombers, and U.S. military
activity all posed fatal risks for Iraqi journalists. All but
one of 31 journalists killed were Iraqi nationals. They worked
mainly for local media, although nine worked for international
news organizations such as The New York Times, ABC
News, Reuters, and The Associated Press. The 2007 toll in Iraq
is consistent with that of 2006, when 32 journalists died.
“Working as a journalist in Iraq remains one of the most
dangerous jobs on the planet,” said CPJ Executive Director
Joel Simon. “Members of the press are being hunted down and
murdered with alarming regularity. They are abducted at
gunpoint and found dead later or shot dead on the spot. Those
who die are nearly always Iraqi and many work for
international news agencies. These journalists gave their
lives so that all of us could be informed about what is
happening in Iraq.”
Twelve media support workers, such as bodyguards and drivers,
also died in Iraq. Since the beginning of the war in March
2003,
124 journalists and 49 media
workers have been killed, making it the
deadliest conflict for the press in recent history. More than
one-third worked for international news organizations.
Beneath the terrible numbers, CPJ documented some positive
developments: There were no murders of journalists in Colombia
this year for the first time in more than 15 years. For the
first time since 1999, there were no work-related deaths of
Philippine journalists.
Murder is the leading cause of work-related deaths for
journalists worldwide. Consistent with previous years, about
seven in 10 journalist deaths in 2007 were murders.
(Combat-related deaths and deaths in dangerous assignments
account for the rest.) CPJ announced a
global campaign against impunity
in November to seek justice in journalist murders. The
campaign focuses on the Philippines and Russia, two of the
deadliest countries for the press over the past 15 years.
Despite recent convictions in both countries, the impunity
rate in each remains at about 90 percent. “Unsolved killings
spread fear and self-censorship, crippling the work of the
media,” said Simon. “We need to break the cycle by bringing
the killers of journalists to justice.”
In every region of the world, journalists who produced
critical reporting or covered sensitive stories were silenced.
In both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, five journalists were killed
for their work. Suicide bombers caused three of the five
deaths in Pakistan, including the death of
Muhammad Arif of
ARY One World TV, who was among the 139 people killed when
bombs exploded during the homecoming of former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto. In Sri Lanka, air force fighter jets bombed
the Voice of Tigers radio station, killing three employees.
One slaying occurred in the United States, where a masked
gunman shot Oakland Post Editor-in-Chief
Chauncey Bailey as
he walked to work. Police moved quickly to apprehend the
suspected gunman.
Millions of people around the globe watched the apparently
deliberate murder of Japanese photographer
Kenji Nagai by
Burmese troops during the crackdown on antigovernment
demonstrators in Rangoon. No apparent moves have been made to
bring his killer to justice.
The assassination of Turkish-Armenian editor
Hrant Dink outside
his newspaper office in Istanbul sent shock waves through the
Turkish press and the international community. In Kyrgyzstan,
ethnic Uzbek independent journalist
Alisher Saipov was
shot and killed at close range, and in
Peru,
popular radio commentator
Miguel Pérez Julca
was gunned down in front of his family.
Nepal,
the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Haiti, Honduras, and
Russia also made the list of places with journalist fatalities
this year. Five journalists are
classified as missing,
three of them in Mexico.
Media support workers are increasingly at risk, CPJ research
shows. For the first time, CPJ has compiled a list of media
worker deaths. Worldwide, 20 translators, fixers, guards, and
drivers were killed in 2007. The victims include three
Mexican newspaper delivery workers
slain by drug traffickers seeking to silence their employer.
CPJ, founded in 1981, compiles and analyzes journalist deaths
each year. CPJ staff applies strict criteria for each entry on
the annual killed list; researchers independently investigate
and verify the circumstances behind each death. CPJ considers
a case work-related only when its staff is reasonably certain
that a journalist was killed in direct reprisal for his or her
work; in crossfire; or while carrying out a dangerous
assignment.
If the motives in a killing are unclear, but it is possible
that a journalist died in direct relation to his or her work,
CPJ classifies the case as “unconfirmed” and continues to
investigate. CPJ’s list does not include journalists who died
from illness or were killed in accidents—such as car or plane
crashes—unless the crash was caused by hostile action. Other
press organizations using different criteria cite higher
numbers of deaths than CPJ.
A preliminary list of journalists
killed for their work in 2007, with reporting
on each case, is available online. Also online are capsules
for the
unconfirmed cases
that CPJ is still investigating, and capsules for
media worker deaths.
A final list of journalists killed in 2007 will be released on
January 2, 2008.
CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit
organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.
For more information, visit
www.cpj.org. |
