Fifty reporters and media workers were killed in association with their work in 2020, the majority in nations that are not at war, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced Tuesday.
The figure reveals an escalation in the targeting of reporters investigating organised crime, corruption or environmental issues, the watchdog said. It highlighted murders in Mexico, India and Pakistan.
Eighty-four percent of those killed this year were “deliberately targeted” for their job, RSF stated in its yearly report, opposed to 63 percent in 2019.
“For several years now, Reporters Without Borders has noted that investigative journalists are really in the crosshairs of states, or cartels,” said Pauline Ades-Mevel, RSF editor-in-chief.
Mexico was the most lethal country, with eight killed. “Links between drug traffickers and politicians remain, and journalists who dare to report these or related issues remain to be the targets of barbaric murders,” said the report.
None of the Mexico killings had yet been punished, added RSF, which has collected annual data on violence against journalists around the globe since 1995.
Five journalists were killed in war-torn Afghanistan, it said, recording an increase in targeted attacks on media workers in recent months even as peace talks between the government and Taliban are ongoing.
RSF similarly highlighted the case of Iranian opposition figure Ruhollah Zam, who ran a popular social media channel that rallied regime opponents, His execution “confirms Iran’s record as a country that has officially put the most journalists to death in the past half-century,” it said.
Ades-Mevel related RSF had also regarded the “developing” trend of violence against media workers treating protests, prominently in the United States following the killing of George Floyd, and in France against a controversial new security law.
The total number of journalists killed in 2020 was lower than the 53 reported in 2019, although RSF said fewer journalists worked in the field this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the first part of the report, published this month, RSF stated it was concerned that measures forced by governments to battle the pandemic had contributed to a “significant peak in violations of press freedom”. It registered 387 jailed journalists, which is called “a historically high number”. Fourteen of those had been arrested in connection with their coverage of the coronavirus crisis, it said.
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