The number of journalists killed (57) increasedespecially due to the war in Ukraine, after reaching “historically low” figures in 2021 (48) and 2020 (50), according to the annual report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released this Wednesday.
The number of imprisoned journalists in the world also reached a new record in 2022, with 533.
The report details that 11 reporters were killed in Mexico, 20% of the total, added to six in Haiti and three in Brazil.
Such murders, according to RSF, “made the Americas the most dangerous region in the world for the press, with almost half (47.4%) of the total number of journalists murdered in the world in 2022″.
In Colombia, a journalist was murdered, while Venezuela registered two arrested.
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Mexico remained in 2022, for the fourth consecutive year, as the most dangerous country for information professionals, with 11 journalists killed, three more than in Ukraine, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Wednesday.
Studies place Latin America as the most dangerous area to exercise press freedomsince the region accumulates almost half of the global violent deaths (47.4%) of journalists in the exercise of their profession.
In all, this year, “57 journalists have paid with their lives for their commitment to information, compared to 48 murders in 2021, and 50 in 2020”indicates the RSF report.
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65% of all of them “have been killed in areas considered to be at peace”. Ukraine ranked second deadliest in the world for journalists, behind Mexico, due to the Russian invasion. Haiti came in third, with six journalists killed, while Brazil matched Syria and Yemen with 3 victims.
From Brazil, RSF highlights the case of British journalist Dom Phillips, whose body was found dismembered in the Brazilian Amazon while working on threats to indigenous people in that region.
Among the deceased journalists, 49 were locals and 8 foreigners and most were “deliberately” killed (Only a dozen of the total deaths occurred by chance, without expressly being white.)
On the other hand, censorship and surveillance of the press reached “extreme levels” in 2022 in China, the “biggest prison” of journalists in the world with 110 imprisonedand Iran has seen a “resurgence” of “repression”, especially since the latest protests, according to RSF.
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In total, that area alone concentrates 75% of journalists behind bars around the world, which in 2022 totaled a record number of 533.
This means that although in China arrests and censorship of the press are higher, in Latin America journalists are silenced and censored through murder.
RSF also highlighted the unprecedented number of women journalists imprisoned, with 78, up from 60 last year. “Women journalists now represent more than 15% of those detained compared to less than 7% five years ago,” he says.
RSF.
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Radiography of press freedom in the rest of the world
More than half of the journalists imprisoned in the world as of December 1 were in five countries: China (110), Burma (62), Iran (47), Vietnam (39) and Belarus (31). Iran is the only country that did not appear on this “dismal list” last year, says the NGO, which has kept this annual record since 1995.
The Islamic Republic has jailed an “unprecedented” number in 20 years of press professionals, after the start of the protest movement that broke out in September. Some 34 new journalists joined the 13 already locked up before the start of the protests.
“Dictatorial and authoritarian regimes quickly fill their jails with journalists”denounced Christophe Deloire, general secretary of the organization for the defense of press freedom.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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