An annual report by an Iraqi media watchdog said on Wednesday that up to 54 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq during 2007, making the country the most dangerous place for journalists in the world.
"A total of 54 journalists have been killed in 2007. Most of the fatalities have taken place in Baghdad and Nineveh province. All of the attacks were launched by unknown gunmen," the Iraqi Journalists' Rights Defending Association (IJRDA) said in its report posted on the internet.
The watchdog also said that 31 journalists were detained during the year, 10 kidnapped, six of them freed later by their kidnappers and four still missing.
All the killed journalists, except for a Russian reporter, were Iraqis who mostly worked for local and foreign media.
The motive behind targeting the journalists was often hard to pinpoint but was always linked to their work or the media outlet that employed them.
The shootings by unidentified gunmen, bomb attacks and U.S. military activities all posed fatal risks to Iraqi journalists, the report said.
The IJRDA called on the Iraqi parliament to issue a law that would organize the work of the journalists and to establish an office to investigate the attacks on the journalists.
The international media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said that at least 86 journalists have been killed around the world in 2007, more than half of them died in Iraq, adding that the war in Iraq has proved to be the deadliest for journalists since World War II.
"No country has ever seen more journalists killed than Iraq, with at least 207 media workers dying there since the March 2003 U.S. invasion," the international watchdog said.
Source: Xinhua
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