The Israeli army killed a third of the journalists murdered in 2024 worldwide and Israel has become the third largest prison in the world for these professionals. This is clear from the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report presented this morning at the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid. In total, 54 communicators were murdered this year, 31 of them in conflict zones. The organization has denounced that Gaza is the most dangerous area in the world: since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed 145 journalists. In addition, 550 journalists remain imprisoned around the world, more than last year.
“Gaza has broken our schemes. There is no other interpretation here, all the journalists murdered by Israel have been for the exercise of their duties,” introduced Edith Rodríguez, vice president of RsF, an entity that had never recorded a similar figure in such a short space of time. “The 145 journalists murdered in that area mark an unprecedented massacre and make the Israeli army the biggest murderer of journalists in the world,” he added.
The 54 journalists murdered from January to December 2024 have set a record for RsF. Additionally, the number of journalists killed around the world while covering conflict zones, particularly in the Middle East, Iraq, Sudan, Burma and Ukraine, has reached its highest level in five years, reaching 57.4%. In this sense and according to their data, the Gaza Strip accounted for a third of the murdered journalists in 2024, up to 18 that have been verified, all killed in the exercise of their profession at the hands of the Israeli army.
“Palestine is the most dangerous country to report on and has recorded the highest number of murders of reporters worldwide in the last five years,” RsF has reiterated. Likewise, the entity investigates these murders to denounce the deliberate attacks against communicators. He has already filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed against reporters by Israel.
Asia is the second most dangerous region for communicators due to the large number of journalists murdered in Pakistan, up to seven, and during the demonstrations in Bangladesh, up to five. In the specific case of Syria, Rodríguez has stated that RsF has asked to try the former leader of the regime, Bashar al Assad, for the murder of 181 journalists since the 2011 revolution. “We call on the country’s future political leaders to a promising freedom of the press is established, and we do not forget that some of the journalists who have lost their lives in the territory have done so at the hands of the rebel groups that are now in power,” recalled the vice president.
More journalists imprisoned than in 2023
The imprisonment of journalists has grown worldwide. In total, 550 communicators are in prison, which represents an increase of 7.2% compared to the figure for 2023. Of them, 77 are women. This is due, in particular, to the new arrests in Russia, about eight, and Israel, which total 17, the organization has explained.
In addition, Israel is, by far, the country that has imprisoned the most journalists since the beginning of the Gaza war, in October 2023, becoming the third largest prison in the world for the press, RsF has assured. According to Rodríguez, “Israel regularly uses so-called administrative detentions through which any journalist can end up detained and locked up without justification or formal charges, something that is also reproduced in the occupied territories of the West Bank.”
In this sense, communicators have experienced 298 provisional arrests and 244 imprisonments worldwide after a conviction, including nine life sentences and eight house arrests.
Thus, four countries concentrate the majority of imprisoned journalists: China (124 imprisoned journalists, 11 of them in Hong Kong), Burma (61), Israel (41) and Belarus (40). “Imprisonment is a tool of repression, especially in the service of Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Israeli offensive in Gaza,” the international organization added. Rodríguez, for his part, has reflected that “the fact that Israel is on this shameful list in such a high position makes us wonder what kind of democracy there is and if it should be treated as such.” This year, up to 72 journalists have been sentenced to sentences totaling more than 250 years in prison around the world.
Syria, the place with the most kidnapped journalists
Kidnappings are another of the terrible realities that reporters face, especially in conflict zones. This 2024, 55 communicators remain kidnapped around the world. Of all of them, 70% are in Syria, most of them kidnapped by the Islamic State during the war. Syria is the only country in the world with kidnapped foreign journalists.
Yemen is the only country with new kidnappings in 2024, while the previous year Mali joined this disgraceful list. Of the 55 journalists currently kidnapped, three are women. In this case, the five high-risk countries are, in order of danger, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Mali and Mexico.
Regarding the biggest kidnappers, RsF has indicated that the Islamic State is the group that has carried out the most kidnappings this year. They are followed by the so-called Syrian rebel groups, such as FSA, Ahrar al Sham, Al-Nusra, Hamza Brigade, Sultan Murad Division and Jaysh al-Islam, which have kidnapped 11 people. Behind them are undetermined armed groups, with eight kidnappings; the Hayat Tahrir al-Cham Group, with six; the Houthis, with four; and Al Qaeda, with a kidnapping.
States cause almost half of disappearances
At the end of 2024, RsF has stated that 95 journalists, including seven women, are missing in 34 countries around the world, of which more than 25% have disappeared in the last decade, specifically 28, located in Mexico, Syria, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine and Iraq. On the other hand, 45% of missing journalists are victims of forced disappearances. “These disappearances are often attributable to authoritarian or negligent governments and underline the urgent need to strengthen the protection of journalists and fight against impunity,” the entity has demanded.
For this reason, the organization calls on States to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006, this Convention has only been signed by 75 countries to date.
Mexico stands out as the most dangerous country in the world for reporters, concentrating more than 30% of the cases of missing journalists. This year there were four new forced disappearances, RsF has denounced, located in Burkina Faso, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria. In terms of geographical areas, America is postulated as the one with the highest risk, with 39 disappearances, three dozen of them in Mexico, followed by the Maghreb and the Middle East, with 19; Africa, with 17; Europe and Central Asia; with a dozen; and Asia, with eight.
New threats to accurate information
Alfonso Bauluz, president of RsF in Spain, has referred to some of the threats that the journalistic profession faces today. She has mentioned the “cyber violence that women suffer, especially,” but also the increasing misinformation hosted on social networks like ‘X’, in which the political and communication battle is increasingly being fought. “What happened with Dana in Valencia is the greatest poisoning with lies ever seen before,” he exemplified. He has also commented on the threat that artificial intelligence poses to accurate information.
This professor from the same Faculty of Information Sciences has recognized that journalism is still worthwhile. “Right now there is nothing more interesting than communicating and experiencing first-hand what is happening in Syria, how a regime that has been in power for half a century falls,” he stated before emphasizing that, given the working conditions, this is not an obstacle. to be able to classify him as “more masochistic than heroic.” Finally, Bauluz invited those present to read Ali Ahmad Said Esber, a well-known Syrian poet by the name of Adonis. This is how some of his verses read in his poem ‘Time’ from the collection of poems ‘The Siege of Beirut’, written in 1985: “In my throat are the shreds of History / and on my face the signs of sacrifice. / How bitter the language is now! / How narrow the door of the alphabet!”
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