Press Pays Heavy Toll in 2006
The year 2006 had the sad distinction of being the deadliest year for the press.
Eighty-one journalists and 32 media assistants were killed in 21 countries, while 56 journalists were kidnapped. It makes the year that just elapsed the deadliest year since 1994, according to the Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders.
Another 871 journalists were arrested; 1,472 were physically attacked or threatened; 912 media outlets were censored.
Almost half the kidnappings occurred in Iraq (17) and Gaza (six). All those seized in the Palestinian Territories were freed, but six in Iraq were executed by their captors.
By comparison to 2005, 63 journalists and five media assistants were killed; at least 807 were arrested; 1,308 were physically attacked or threatened and 1,006 media outlets censored.
For the press Iraq remains the world's most dangerous country for the fourth consecutive year. The ever-increasing violence has claimed the lives of 64 journalists and media assistants.
Since 2003, when hostilities first erupted, 139 journalists have been killed in Iraq, more than twice the number that died during the 20-year Vietnam War (63 killed between 1955 and 1975).
About 90 percent of the victims were Iraqis. Investigations into the killings were rarely, if ever, carried out. None were completed. [snip]
Cui Bono?
Who benefits from making sure that journalists don't dare cover events in Iraq and Palestine???
See also, Targeted killing of Iraqi intellectuals: 2003-2006. Gunning down unarmed demonstrators in Baghdad doesn't make for good press at home.
These are deadly times. If these madmen don't mind doing this to others just to keep them quiet, it's only a matter of time before they do it to us.
See - I told you!
American activist Alison Weir, founder of the outstanding If Americans Knew, received a death threat by phone from a zionist psychopath.
Source: Press Pays Heavy Toll in 2006 by Claude Salhani, Washington (UPI), Jan 02, 2007
... their offices were bombed in Afghanistan, shot at in Iraq (where a journalist there was murdered). They have a camera man in Guantanamo Bay, and another journalist in Spain tried under anti-terror laws.