PARIS: Nearly 1,700 journalists have been killed across the globe over the past 20 years, an average of more than 80 a year, reveals a report published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) the other day.
The 25-pages report says Asia also has many countries on this tragic list, including the Philippines, with more than 100 journalists killed since the start of 2003, Pakistan with 93, and India with 58.
Prominent Journalist Arshad Sharif was among those 93 killed this year. The hardcore critic of the present Islamabad based government was shot dead in the suburbs of Kenyan capital Nairobi under mysterious circumstances in October.
Another journo from Sindh, Aziz Memon, was shot dead again in mysterious circumstances in February 2020. He had disclosed the story of ‘rented crowd’ for Bilawal’s train march.
The RSF report states that The two decades between 2003 and 2022 were “especially deadly decades for those in the service of the right to inform,” said the Paris-based media rights group.
This year recorded 58 killings of journalists, 13.7 per cent higher than in 2021 when 51 journalists were killed.
“Behind the figures, there are the faces, personalities, talent and commitment of those who have paid with their lives for their information gathering, their search for the truth and their passion for journalism,” RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said.
Sadly, the number of journalists killed in connection with their work in 2022 – 58 according to RSF’s Press Freedom Barometer on 28 December – was the highest in the past four years and was 13.7% higher than in 2021, when 51 journalists were killed.
According to the Paris-based media rights campaigners, the two countries with the highest death tolls are Iraq and Syria, with a combined total of 578 journalists killed in the past 20 years, or more than a third of the worldwide total. They are followed by Afghanistan, Yemen and Palestine.
