Iraq still deadliest for journalists
Iraq still world's deadliest country for journalists and media workers with 11 reporters killed in 2008
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Friday, 19, Dec 2008 04:56
Iraq is still the world's deadliest country for journalists and media workers despite a marked improvement in security in 2008.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) revealed annual figures on Friday showing 11 members of the press had been killed in direct connection to their work in the last year.
In both 2006 and 2007 32 journalists died reporting in Iraq, with the CPJ attributing the sharp drop to increased American troop levels, Sunni Muslim tribal leaders turning against al-Qaida in western Iraq and Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr declaring a ceasefire with coalition troops.
Iraq has been the deadliest country for journalists for the last six years, with 136 journalists and 51 media workers killed since the war began in 2003.
Overall in 2008 41 journalists were killed in direct connection with their work, down from 65 last year, although a further 22 deaths are being investigated.
CPJ said instability in Asia had claimed the lives of 13 journalists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and India, including BBC correspondent Abdul Samad Rohani, who was killed while reporting in Helmand on the opium trade.
During the civil unrest witnessed in Thailand in 2008 three journalists died, CPJ said, with three reporters dying in the five-day war between Georgia and Russia in August.