According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, throughout the world there were a minimum of seventy journalists killed in 2013. Twenty-nine reporters were murdered during the civil war coverage in Syria, alone, and ten were slain in Iraq.
The twenty-nine that were killed within Syria includes citizen journalists that were reporting to document combat in their own backyard, broadcasters that were adjoined with media outlets affiliated with the opposition or the government, and a few correspondents from the foreign press.
There were six journalists that died in Egypt — in August of 2013, when Egyptian security forces suppressed the outbreaks of violence and bloody confrontations amongst pro-Morsi, anti-Morsi demonstrators and security forces.
The CPJ’s Deputy Director Robert Mahoney stated: “The Middle East has become a killing field for journalists. While the number of journalists killed for their work has declined in some places, the civil war in Syria? And a renewal of sectarian attacks in Iraq have taken an agonizing toll. The international community must prevail on all governments and armed groups to respect the civilian status of reporters and to prosecute the killers of journalists.”
The CPJ New York base has been recording the deaths amongst reporters and broadcasters since 1992. The majority of the journalists that are murdered are those reporting news from their hometowns.
A plethora of killings happen among reporters that cover conflict zones, combat, and in several countries correspondents were reporting in volatile periods.
Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, India, Pakistan, Philippines, and Russia have killed commentators that cover political corruption, drug trafficking, police misconduct and what ever they deem to be sensitive material.
A pair of Radio France Internationale journalists were first abducted and then killed after meeting with a leader of the Tuareg separatists in Kidal, Mali.
Iraqi militants massacre five members from the news staff of Salaheddin TV in a suicide attack on the channel’s office in Tikrit.
The CPJ are still investigating the deaths of an additional 25 journalists, attempting to determine whether their deaths were due to their journalist activities.
A minimum of sixty-three journalists have died covering the Syrian conflict, sixty have been abducted and thirty are still missing.
Freedom of the Press is hard to come by, and when journalists cannot report events in their own backyard, it leaves the people vulnerable and uninformed. Thomas Jefferson said it best, “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”
God Bless all those that have lost their lives fighting the good fight, never giving up on the hope that is within us all.
