Committee to Protect Journalists: At Least 60 Journalists Were Killed in 2014

The Committee to Protect Journalists has released a report stating that at least 60 journalists were killed while working or during job-related events worldwide in 2014. According to the report, 44% of these individuals were murdered. The new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, as reported by the Associated Press, indicates that a high percentage of these journalists, about a quarter of them, were international journalists. However, as in the past, local journalists constitute a significant percentage of those 'at risk'. The Committee, based in New York, added that one of the deceased journalists, Anja Niedringhaus, a German Associated Press reporter, was shot while covering the Afghan elections. The report, published on Tuesday, January 23, indicates that the number of journalists killed in 2014 decreased from 70 the previous year, but the last three years have been the deadliest for journalists since the organization began compiling statistics in 1992. The catastrophic conflicts in Syria, which is soon entering its fourth year, have been a significant factor in the increase in journalist casualties. According to the report, at least 17 journalists were killed in Syria in 2014, and a total of 79 journalists have died in Syria since the conflict began in 2011. Two horrific murders of journalists also occurred in Syria, where the Islamic State group kidnapped American freelance journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff while they were covering military conflicts in Syria and later beheaded them. According to the Associated Press, five journalists and two media staff were killed in the Ukraine conflict between the new government and Russian-backed separatists. As relations between Russia and Western countries have reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War, the killing of these journalists is the first case recorded by the Committee since 2001 in Ukraine. Coverage of the Gaza war and 50 days of military conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the summer of 2014 resulted in the deaths of at least four journalists and three media staff. One Associated Press journalist, Simon C. and his translator Ali Shahadi Abouafash were killed in an explosion of unexploded ordnance. In Iraq, at least five journalists died, three of whom were killed while covering the war against Islamic State forces in the northwest of the country. The report also mentions the killing of journalists in some countries where it has been a long time since such incidents occurred, including the killing of three journalists in Paraguay, which is the first case since 2007, and also the first case of a journalist killed in the Central African Republic following severe conflicts between Christians and Muslims in that country. Coverage of the deadly Ebola virus was also fatal for journalists. The bodies of one journalist and two media staff who went to a remote village in Guinea to inform villagers were discovered there. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) states that it is still investigating the deaths of 18 other journalists in 2014. The organization does not include deaths from illness, car accidents, or air crashes in its statistics unless they occurred as a result of 'hostile actions'.