Iraq, PH deadliest places for journalists, says media group

PARIS — Iraq and the Philippines are the deadliest places for journalists, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

Between 1990 and 2015, the IFJ  lists more than 600 journalists killed on the job in the Asia-Pacific region, more than 500 in the Middle East and Arab world, more than 500 in the Americas, and more than 400 in Africa.

Most of the deaths occur in conflict-ridden Iraq (336), the Philippines (153) and Mexico (145).

The IFJ counts more than 2,500 deaths of journalists on the job since 1990, taking into account both journalists and other media staff.

Europe is safest

Over this period, the IFJ counts more than 350 deaths in Europe, making it the least dangerous zone for journalists.

Nearly two-thirds of the deaths have taken place in Russia—including the high-profile assassination in 2006 of

investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya—in Turkey and during the Balkan wars.

In its 2017 report, Reporters Without Border lists 65 deaths worldwide, including 50 journalists, seven bloggers and eight media staff.

These deaths represent a decline of 18 percent compared with 2016 due to “a growing awareness of the need to protect journalists” and also because journalists are avoiding countries that have become “too dangerous,” such as Libya, Syria and Yemen, according to the report.

The murder of top Slovak reporter Jan Kuciak adds to the toll of  journalists killed in Europe over the past several years, although the region remains the safest for the profession.

Recent killings

Here is a summary since 1990.

In a grisly case in August 2017, 30-year-old Swedish reporter Kim Wall is killed on board a submarine belonging to inventor Peter Madsen, who was subsequently charged with her murder.

Wall’s remains are found over a series of weeks in Denmark’s Koge Bay, weighed down by metal objects, after she vanished while interviewing Madsen.

One of Malta’s most prominent public figures and anticorruption blogger, 53-year-old Daphne Caruana Galizia, is killed in a car bombing outside her home in October 2017.

National soul-searching

Her death prompts national soul-searching over whether the island’s economic boom has brought with it a wave of corruption and organized crime.

Twelve members of  the staff at France’s satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo are gunned down in January 2015 by two brothers who vow allegiance to al-Qaida.

Socratis Guiolias, a 37-year-old radio station director and formerly an editor on one of Greece’s main scandal-hunting television shows, is assassinated in front of his home in Athens in July 2010.

The extreme-left Revolutionary Sect group claims responsibility for the killing.