Pakistan saw highest number of reporters killed in 2010
* Advocacy group says 57 journalists killed worldwide
* Abductions rise with 51 kidnapped in 2010, up from 33 in 2009
PARIS: Pakistan was the deadliest country for reporters where 11 were killed this year, media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said on Thursday. A total of 57 journalists were killed worldwide this year, the group said, adding that fewer reporters were being killed in war zones while more were targeted by criminals or traffickers. The death toll was down 25 percent from 2009, when 76 journalists were killed in connection with their jobs. Last year’s record number of deaths was so high because of a massacre in the Philippines that saw more than two dozen journalists and their staff gunned down. In its annual report, the Paris-media advocacy group said that organised crime groups and militias have become the biggest dangers for journalists.
“If governments do not make every effort to punish the murderers of journalists, they become their accomplices,” Jean-Francois Julliard, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement. Seven journalists were killed in Mexico, seven in Iraq and four in the Philippines. Earlier this month the Committee to Protect Journalists said 42 media workers were killed worldwide in 2010. The two groups have slightly different criteria on what kind of reporters they include in their counts, and they also differed on whether some reporters were clearly targeted because of their profession, Julliard said.
It said 2010 also brought a sharp increase in abductions of journalists. A total of 51 reporters were kidnapped in 2010, up from 33 in 2009, Reporters Without Borders said. Two French TV journalists, Herve Ghesquiere and Stephane Taponier, as well as their three Afghan assistants have been held hostage in Afghanistan for more than a year. “Journalists are seen less and less as outside observers,” the report said. “Their neutrality and the nature of their work are no longer respected.”
Source: Daily Times
Date:12/31/2010
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