Africa: 102 Journalists Killed in 2010 - Report

A total of 102 journalists were killed in 2010, eight fewer than the year before, a media watchdog said yesterday. The year was the second bloodiest since International Press Institute's Death Watch records began in 1997, behind only 2009, which saw 110 deaths.In Asia, 40 reporters were slain, making it the most dangerous region in the world for journalists. Latin America was next with 32 journalists killed according to the International Press Institute in its yearly World Press Freedom Review.

With respects to countries, Pakistan, with 16 deaths, was the most dangerous country in the world to be a journalist.

However, the Latin American countries of Honduras, with 10 deaths, and Mexico, with 12, accounted for almost one quarter of all the deaths last year.

Almost all of the 12 journalists who died in Mexico in 2010 were murdered, with all but one - whose throat was slit - shot. One was killed in a shootout between members of the military and cartel gunmen, leaving it unclear whether he was specifically targeted.

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Journalists in Nairobi take part in a demonstration to protests against a gag on press freedoms.

World Press Freedom Review Managing Editor, Anthony Mills, said, "Although popular consciousness is attuned to war correspondents dying in conflict zones that are in the international eye such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and, more recently, Libya, in Mexico there's another no-less-deadly front line.

"It's a front line littered with the bodies of journalists whose by-line may not appear on the pages of the world's most prominent newspapers, and who may not file reports for the world's most prominent broadcasters, but who are no less heroic, no less committed to the cause of gathering and transmitting news to serve the public interest in a country facing a very real, extremely violent, and often deadly conflict."

Also in Honduras, all 10 journalists died in shootings, with most gunned down in their cars or while leaving home or work. Joseph Hernández Ochoa, 24, a journalism student at the University of Honduras, and a former entertainment presenter on the privately-owned Canal 51 TV station, was shot more than 20 times in the chest after the car in which he was travelling with another journalist was fired on some 36 times by men in another vehicle on an unlit road, according to the IPI report.

Two journalists in Colombia were shot by unknown attackers and a third was stabbed to death, while two journalists in Brazil were gunned down by assailants on motorcycles.

Fifteen journalists died in sub-Saharan Africa in 2010, while eight died in the Middle East and North Africa and seven died in Europe.

Although the number of journalists who died in 2010 represented a drop from 2009's all-time high, it was in some ways worse than previous tallies because no large number could be tied to a major war or a single high-fatality incident.

Deaths in 2009 surged with the massacre of 32 journalists in Maguindanao in the Philippines, while 46 deaths in Iraq in 2006 at the height of violence following the 2003 invasion and 42 in 2007 led to worldwide journalist death tallies of 100 in 2006 and 94 in 2007.

Last year the number of deaths in Iraq dropped to six.

The number of deaths last year also means that four of the last five years have been the deadliest on record for journalists.

Seven journalists died in Europe, including two in Russia and one each in Greece, Bulgaria, Belarus, Latvia and Turkey.

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• Human RightsSeven hundred eighty eight journalists have been killed around the globe since the start of 2001. Iraq, the Philippines and Colombia remained the most dangerous countries in the last ten years, with 177, 96 and 50 journalists killed, respectively. Mexico followed with 49 deaths, but Pakistan, with 46 deaths, overtook Russia, with 31, as the fifth most dangerous country.

In the last five years, 472 journalists have died worldwide, accounting for more than half of all deaths since the start of 2001. Iraq and the Philippines have seen the most deaths during that period, but Pakistan rose to third in the last five years, followed by Mexico and Somalia.

"Although the number of journalists who died in 2010 represented a drop from 2009's all-time high (of 110 deaths), it was in some ways worse than previous tallies because no large number could be tied to a major war or a single high-fatality incident," the Vienna-based IPI, which has kept a so-called death watch since 1997, said in a statement.