Fifty journalists were killed in 2020, almost seven out of ten in countries where there is peace and not in war zones, reports Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its annual report released today.

Although the death toll “has remained stable” compared to the 53 journalists killed in 2019, “more and more” journalists are “being killed in countries where there is peace.” This year there were 34 such cases, or 68% of the total, points out the French NGO, whose report covers the period from January 1 to December 15.

The rate of journalists losing their lives in areas of armed conflict continues to decline, falling from 58% in 2016 to 32% this year, in countries such as Syria or Yemen and in areas with “low-level or ongoing armed conflicts” (Afghanistan, Iraq).

Mexico is considered the most dangerous country in the world for media professionals, with 8 murders. They are followed by India (4), Pakistan (4), the Philippines (4) and Honduras (3).

Of the total number of journalists killed in 2020, 84% were targeted and deliberately killed. This percentage reached 63% in 2019.

“Some” of these murders were committed “in an extremely barbaric way”, the NGO emphasizes.

Mexican journalist Julio Valvidia Rodriguez of the El Mundo newspaper of Veracruz was beheaded in the eastern part of the state.

Victor Fernando Alvarez Chavez, director of a local news website, was found dismembered in the town of Acapulco.

The case of Rakes Singh “Nirbik”, an Indian journalist, is one of the most horrific: “he was burned alive after being covered (…) with flammable liquid.”

Israel Moses, a television correspondent in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, was killed “with machetes”, RSF reports.

In Iran, it was the state that sentenced him to death and then hanged Amadnews director Ruhollah Zam.

Of the 20 investigative journalists killed this year, ten were investigating local corruption or embezzlement cases, four of them mafia and organized crime, and three were covering environmental issues.

RSF also reports the deaths of seven journalists covering protests in Iraq, Nigeria and Colombia, a “new” development.

In the first part of its annual report, released in mid-December, the RSF reported 387 imprisoned journalists internationally, a number that remains at a “historically high level”.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), for its part, has spoken of 2,658 murders of journalists since 1990.

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Source: ANA MPA