A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work last year, two-thirds of them by Israel, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Wednesday.
It was the second consecutive year that press killings set a record and the second year in a row that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of them, the CPJ, a New York-based independent organization which documents attacks on the press, said in its annual report.
Israeli fire killed 86 journalists last year, mostly Palestinians in Gaza, but also including 31 workers in an attack on a Houthi media center in Yemen, the second-deadliest attack the CPJ has ever recorded, it said.
Photo: AP)
Israel was also responsible for 81 percent of the 47 killings that the CPJ classified as intentionally targeted, or “murder.”
It said the actual figure was probably higher due to access restrictions that made verification difficult in Gaza.
“Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”
Israel’s military says its troops in Gaza target only combatants, but that operating in combat zones carries inherent risks. Israel acknowledged targeting the media center in Yemen in September last year, describing it at the time as a propaganda arm of the Houthis.
In several cases Israel has acknowledged targeting journalists in Gaza it said had links to Hamas, without providing verifiable evidence. International news organizations have strongly denied that slain reporters had links to militants.
The CPJ called such allegations by Israel “deadly smears.”
A statement from the Israeli Defense Forces said it “strongly rejects” the claims presented in the CPJ report.
At least 104 of the 129 journalists killed died in connection with conflicts, the report said.
Apart from Gaza and Yemen, the deadliest countries for journalists include Sudan, where nine were killed, and Mexico, where six died.
Four Ukrainian journalists were killed by Russian forces and three journalists died in the Philippines, it said.
Additional reporting by AFP
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS