The number of journalists killed worldwide in retaliation for their work nearly doubled this year, an annual report released yesterday by the Committee to Protect Journalists showed.
The New York-based organization found that 34 journalists were killed in retaliation for their work as of Dec. 14, while at least 53 were killed overall. That compares with 18 retaliation killings among the 47 deaths documented by the committee last year.
The report includes the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a native of Saudi Arabia fiercely critical of its royal regime. His Oct. 2 death inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul has led to tremors on the global political scene around allegations that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was involved.
Khashoggi lived in self-imposed exile in the US and had gone to the Saudi Arabian consulate to formalize his divorce, but was instead strangled and dismembered — allegedly by Saudi Arabian agents.
In addition to retaliation killings, journalists have died in combat or crossfire, or on other dangerous assignments. The deadliest country for journalists this year has been Afghanistan, where 13 journalists were killed, some in back-to-back blasts staged by suicide bombers and claimed by the militant Islamic State group, according to the report.
The deadliest single attack on the media in recent US history came on June 28, when a gunman in Annapolis, Maryland, opened fire in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette and fatally shot four journalists and a sales associate. The man had threatened the newspaper after losing a defamation lawsuit.
The committee also said that the imprisonment of journalists has been increasing this year.
“The context for the crisis is varied and complex, and closely tied to changes in technology that have allowed more people to practice journalism even as it has made journalists expendable to the political and criminal groups who once needed the news media to spread their message,” the committee said.
Time magazine last week recognized jailed and killed journalists as its Person of the Year, including Khashoggi, Maria Ressa imprisoned in the Philippines, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo imprisoned in Myanmar, and staff at the Capital Gazette.
Journalists have also died this year in Slovakia, where 27-year-old investigative reporter Jan Kuciak was fatally shot while probing alleged corruption, and in Malta, where Daphne Caruana Galizia, on a similar mission, was killed by a bomb placed in her vehicle.
At least four journalists were murdered in Mexico, two in Brazil, and two Palestinian journalists were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during protests in the Gaza Strip, the report said.
In Syria and Yemen, two of the worst civil-war decimated countries, the fewest journalists were killed since 2011. Three died in Yemen, while in Syria, the committee recorded nine deaths compared with a high of 31 in 2012.
However, the drop might have been due to limited access or extreme risks that discourage media visits, the committee said.
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