Journalists being killed for reporting the truth is nothing new, but it’s still shocking when the numbers are actually released.
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) announced today that 64 journalists were killed around the world with the most dangerous region being the middle east. Ten journalists were killed in Pakistan for the second year in the row making it the deadliest country for journalists.
The uprisings in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen cost the lives of 16 journalists, while Iraq remains dangerous with six journalists killed last year.
Mexico is the most dangerous country in the Western hemisphere with six deaths reported in the country due to the coverage of organized crime and corruption.
The deaths are down from previous years with the high being in 2006 where 110 journalists were killed. The full list of deaths from last year and those prior can be found on the WAN-IFRA Web site.
While journalists are killed in war zones, a lot of them are killed for merely investigated organized crime, drug trafficking, corruption and other crimes. Those who kill journalists are rarely brought to justice.
Journalists were killed in 27 countries in 2011. A lot of the countries are located in the Middle East, but a few of them are surprising such as Russia or Brazil.
The International Press Institute released their own numbers saying that the death count was at 103. They list Latin America as the most dangerous country for journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists released their own numbers in December pegging the death toll at 43.
Regardless of who has the right numbers, the point still stands. The Middle East and Latin America were both dangerous for journalists in 2011.
People took to Twitter to comment on the news while focusing mostly on the deaths in the Middle East.
PM Erdogan 2011:
“those journalists r not detained coz of their journalism” #Turkey
36 journalists were killed in latinamerica last year, most of them covering drug-related stories, 21 were killed in the middle east