Violence Against Journalists
Violence against journalists is a critical issue affecting media professionals worldwide, characterized by physical assaults, kidnappings, harassment, and killings. This violence is particularly acute in conflict zones and authoritarian regimes, where freedom of the press is often suppressed. Each week, at least one journalist is killed globally, with notable fatalities occurring in regions such as Iraq and Syria, where the risks are exacerbated by ongoing conflicts. Additionally, many journalists face imprisonment, especially in countries like Turkey, China, and Egypt, where they are detained for expressing dissenting opinions. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented over 2,367 journalist deaths since 1992, highlighting the pervasive threat to media workers in various political contexts. This violence is not limited to a single ideology; journalists have faced persecution from both extreme right-wing and left-wing governments, as well as from organized crime syndicates. The situation in the United States, often regarded as a bastion of press freedom, underscores that the threat exists even in democratic societies. The ongoing violence against journalists calls for heightened awareness and advocacy for their safety and the protection of their rights, as they play a crucial role in informing the public and upholding democratic principles.
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Subject Terms
Violence Against Journalists
DEFINITION: Physical assaults on news reporters
SIGNIFICANCE: Assassination is the ultimate form of censorship; every week at least one journalist is killed somewhere in the world
Every year throughout the world hundreds of journalists are assaulted, kidnapped, harassed, falsely imprisoned, illegally detained, or threatened with physical harm. Conflict zones and authoritarian and post-authoritarian societies are the most dangerous regions for journalists, with dozens killed in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan over the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Murders of journalists were rarer in the most repressive societies, but this was because journalists themselves were rarely present in such societies. For example, since the 1990s, no killings of reporters were confirmed in North Korea, one of the most repressive regimes in the world. However, although working journalists were rarely killed in such countries as China, Ethiopia, and Kuwait, many were routinely imprisoned, often for lengthy terms.
The most widespread violence directed against journalists tended to occur in countries that were wrecked by conflict or had recently escaped autocratic rule and were beginning to allow publication of independent newspapers, magazines, and journals. In such societies, officially instigated violence was combined with a systematic failure of government authorities to investigate, let alone prosecute, criminal acts against journalists.
In 1981, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) was formed by American foreign correspondents in response to the often-brutal treatment of their colleagues by authoritarian governments and other enemies of free and independent journalism. Since then, CPJ has monitored abuses against the press and promoted freedom of expression around the world. It accomplished this through fact-finding missions, independent research, and annual reports, as well as an online database of journalists killed, imprisoned, or missing since 1992.
From 1992 to late 2024, CPJ reported 2,367 journalists were killed in the line of duty, including those who were murdered. The others were killed in crossfire in conflict zones or on other dangerous assignments, and this number only includes deaths in with confirmed motives. In Iraq, since the 2003 US-led invasion, almost 200 journalists were killed. In Syria, since the civil war started there in 2011, 140 journalists were killed. These two countries account for nearly a quarter of the CPJ's recorded deaths of journalists, with confirmed motives, worldwide since 1992. Other dangerous countries for journalists included Russia, where 60 journalists were killed since 1992, and Colombia, with 54 deaths in that time.
The CPJ also reported 262 journalists were imprisoned worldwide in 2017. The highest number of imprisoned journalists was in Turkey with 73, China was next with 41, and Egypt was third with 20.
Violence against journalists knows no ideological or religious limitations. Extreme right-wing and left-wing governments have harassed, beaten, imprisoned, and assassinated journalists in order to censor dissent and suppress information at odds with their official propaganda. Both governments and their opponents kill journalists. During the 1970s, Argentina’s military government killed nearly a hundred journalists in an effort to impose Christian values. During the 1990s, Algerian rebels murdered more than fifty reporters and editors in a campaign for Islamic rule. In early October 2018, a dissident Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who had been in self-imposed exile in the United States for at least a year and contributed a regular column to the Washington Post, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to discuss divorce papers and did not leave. His disappearance became even more controversial as Saudi Arabian officials continued to alter their explanation for his disappearance, claiming at first that he had in fact left the consulate before later admitting that he had been killed while inside; Turkish authorities claimed that at least fifteen Saudis had been involved and that the murder had been premeditated.
Beyond political persecutions, journalists covering organized crime and drug trafficking have been singled out as targets of physical violence. Colombia claimed one of the highest numbers of confirmed deaths between 1992 and 202454 journalists, most victims of drug-cartel contract murders. Unsolved and uninvestigated disappearances would probably increase this figure immensely. Similar threats exist in Central America, Peru, Venezuela, Russia, Central Europe, Central Asia, and Indochina. Even in the United States, a symbol of press freedom around the world, fourteen journalists have been killed since 1992.
Following the initiation of hostilities between Israel and the terror group Hamas in Gaza, Palestine in October 2023, 84 journalists and media workers were killed in the first five months of the conflict. This equated to five journalists a week. 77 of these media members were Palestinians. Four Israeli journalists were killed on October 7, 2023, the day the conflict initiated.
Bibliography
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