69 journalists died on the job in 2015 ---Report
Sixty-nine journalists were killed around the world on the
job in 2015.
Twenty-eight of them were slain by Islamic militant groups,
including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, according to the Committee to
Protect Journalists, reports AP.
The New York-based organization says Syria again was the
deadliest place for journalists, though the number of deaths there in 2015 — 13
— was lower than in previous years of the conflict.
"These journalists are the most vulnerable," Joel
Simon, the committee's executive director said of reporters and broadcasters
working in Syria and other areas inundated with Islamic extremists. "This
is, clearly based on the data, an incredible risk for journalists."
Those killed by Islamic extremist groups this year included
eight journalists killed in an attack in Paris in January at the office of
satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had published caricatures of the
Prophet Muhammad. The group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed
responsibility for the attack in which two gunmen massacred 12 people. They
said it was in "revenge for the prophet."
In October, two Syrian journalists, Fares Hamadi and Ibrahim
Abd al-Qader were killed by Islamic State militants.
While some of the deaths were among reporters covering conflict
zones, journalists in several countries also were killed after reporting on
sensitive subjects. At least 28 of the reporters who were killed had received
threats before their deaths, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
In Brazil, Gleydson Carvalho, a radio broadcaster who often
criticized local police and politicians for purported wrongdoing, was shot and
killed while presenting his afternoon radio show in August. The committee
tracked six killings in Brazil this year — the highest it has recorded there.
Among the 69 journalists killed were reporter Alison Parker
and videojournalist Adam Ward, of Roanoke, Virginia, TV station WDBJ, who were
fatally shot in August by former co-worker Vester Lee Flanagan II during a live
broadcast. Their interview subject, Vicki Gardner, was wounded. Flanagan
fatally shot himself five hours later after a police chase.
"Journalists are a target and this just confirms
it," Simon said of the data the committee compiled. "This is a global
threat."
Other countries with several journalists killed included
Bangladesh, where extremist groups are suspected in the deaths of four bloggers
and a publisher; and South Sudan, where five journalists traveling with a local
official were killed in an ambush by unidentified gunmen.
The deaths in Bangladesh included the February attack on
Bangladeshi-American blogger and writer Avijit Roy with meat cleavers on a
crowded street in Dhaka, the capital. The killings have raised concerns that
religious extremism is taking hold in the traditionally moderate South Asian
country.
Iraq, Yemen and Brazil also saw at least five journalists
killed in 2015.
The Committee to Protect Journalists report warns that it is
increasingly difficult to research the deaths of journalists in conflict-hit
places such as Libya, Yemen and Iraq. As in Syria, the Islamic State group
holds parts of Iraq, where the organization says it has received reports of
"dozens more journalists killed."
The committee has been compiling reports of journalists'
deaths since 1992. The count includes the deaths of at least 17 journalists
killed in combat or on other dangerous assignments or murdered for their work.
In its own count, the Paris-based group Reporters Without
Borders says in a report released Tuesday that at least 67 journalists were
killed worldwide while reporting or because of their work in 2015. It says the
circumstances around another 43 deaths remain unclear.
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