Reporters without borders: at least 49 journalists were killed worldwide in 2019

According to the Reporters Without Borders (ROG) organization, almost half of the almost 400 journalists worldwide are imprisoned in the three countries of China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia alone. There, the governments have increased the pressure on media people, said ROG board spokesman Michael Rediske on the occasion of the annual balance sheet on press freedom in Berlin.

According to the ROG, there are 120 media professionals in prison in China alone. More than 40 percent of them are citizen journalists who, despite tightened censorship, have tried to disseminate independent information via social networks. Most of the prisoners added in 2019 belonged to the Muslim Uighur minority.

According to ROG, at least 49 journalists and other media professionals have been killed worldwide for their work since the beginning of the year - well over half of them in five countries: Syria, Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. It is true that significantly fewer media workers died in armed conflicts than in previous years. A country at peace like Mexico is just as dangerous for journalists today as the civil war in Syria, Rediske said. There were 86 fatalities in the same period in 2018. The organization considers the period from the beginning of the year to December 1st.

The countries with the most journalists killed were Syria (10 media professionals killed), Mexico (10), Afghanistan (5), Pakistan (4) and Somalia (3). Fourteen journalists were killed across Latin America.

The organization in Berlin said that 389 media professionals are currently in prison, 12 percent more than in the previous year. Almost half of the detained journalists are behind bars in three countries: China (120), Egypt (34) and Saudi Arabia (32), as the annual balance sheet shows. In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, most of the detainees are in prison with no verdict or charge.

In Turkey, dozens of journalists were released after prison terms during the year. However, several of them were arrested again after a short time. The risk of criminal prosecution has even increased, the ROG report says.

57 media professionals had been kidnapped worldwide by December 1, mainly in Syria (30), Yemen (15), Iraq (11) and Ukraine (1). The Houthi rebels in Yemen and the separatists in eastern Ukraine treated hostages as "prisoners", charged with serious crimes and sentenced to high sentences.