World

Two Dozen Journalists Killed On Job

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 19, 2001 / 6:59 PM EST / CBS

Two dozen journalists were killed in the line of duty last year, many of them assassinated in retaliation for their work in countries stretching from Bangladesh to Uruguay, said a study released Monday.

The deadliest assignments in 2000 were in Colombia, Russia and Sierra Leone, with conflict and crime killing three journalists in each nation, according to "Attacks on the Press in 2000," an annual report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"Almost never is anybody brought to justice in these killings," said Ann K. Cooper, executive director of the New York-based group, which defends press freedom around the world. "People have learned that they can get away with murdering a journalist."

The non-profit committee's 550-page annual accounting of press freedom, documented more than 600 cases of media repression in 131 countries, including assassination, assault, imprisonment, censorship and harassment.

While the committee focuses its efforts outside the "developed industrial democracies," it notes that challenges to press freedom drawing concern in the U.S. Most notably, these include court rulings limiting journalistic privilege under the First Amendment and law enforcement action against journalists covering demonstrations.

The number of journalists in prison declined from 87 in 1999 to 81 at the end of 2000 – less than half the record high of 185 in 1996. The committee attributed the drop to the fact that many countries "have turned to more subtle methods to control the press – punitive tax laws, expensive libel suits, and advertising boycotts."

China held the most journalists behind bars, 22, several of them for disseminating information on the Internet. The report noted that new regulations in China have in effect turned Internet providers into de facto government spies.

Murders accounted for at least 16 of the deaths last year, and in most cases those who ordered the killings remain at large, the report said. The committee also is investigating the slayings of an additional 20 journalists whose deaths last year may have been related to their professions.

So far seven journalists have been killed on the job in 2001, according to a preliminary list from the Freedom Forum.

The number of journalists killed last year fell from 34 in 1999 and the high death rates of the early 1990s, according to the committee.

In Sierra Leone, the three killed were slain in May by rebels with the Revolutionary United Front, which opposes the African nation's elected government.

Saoman Conteh, 48, a journalist with the local weekly New Tablet, was shot on May 8 while covering a demonstration outside the residence of a rebel leader whose bodyguards opened fire on the crowd.

Then on May 24, Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora, 32, a cameraman for Associated Press Televsion News, and Reuters correspondent Kurt Schork, 53, were killed when rebels ambushed their vehicles.

Both men had been renowned for covering the world's most dangerous conflicts.

The rebels also killed four Sierra Leone soldiers in the ambush and injured two other Reuters journalists, a South African cameraman and a Greek photographer.

Since 1997, 15 local journalists and foreign correspondents have been killed in Sierra Leone's civil war, the report said.

In Colombia, gunmen shot and killed three local radio journalists during the last three months of 2000. Local authorities and colleagues suspect they were killed because of their reporting on government corruption and crime. The murders bring the 10-year death toll for journalists in Colombia to 34.

Overall, the most dangerous country for journalists has been Algeria, where 59 journalist deaths were documented from 1993 to 1996.

"Local journalists are very vulnerable," Cooper said. "They're writing critically about a government or an armed faction or drug lords and they can't then get on a plane and go to another country and be safely away from someone who might want to punish them."

Two Russian photographers were killed covering the conflict in Chechnya – one when his jeep was blown up by a mine and the other after he was taken hostage by Chechen militants.

And on May 12, Igor Domnikov, 42, a reporter with Moscow's muckraking Novaya Gazeta,, was beaten with a hammer by an unknown attacker. He died of his injuries two months later. Police said the attack was related to his work.

The committee's report documented a wide range of attacks on journalists.

In Ukraine, the death of Internet journalist Jeorgy Gongadze set off a political furor.

And in Mozambique, investigative reporter Carlos Cardoso was assassinated by gunmen for distributing his articles by fax machine.

Perhaps the tightest rope on press freedom is used in North Korea, where listening to a foreign broadcast is a crime punishable by death.

Amid the horror stories, there was at least one humorous touch.

The Jordan Times complained that officials in charge of the country's water insisted that only the top minister, who was out of the country, "could tell the press how much rain fell on Jordan last week."