No less than 27 journalists were killed in 2021 as politics remain the most dangerous beat, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
In the final data released on Wednesday, CPJ said India and Mexico topped the list of countries with the most media worker deaths.
Journalists who died of illness, killed in car or plane accidents were not included unless the crash was caused by hostile action.
A total of 21 were singled out for murder in retaliation for their reporting; 4 were killed while reporting from conflict zones, and two others were killed covering protests or street clashes.
The organization said though the total deaths dropped from 2020’s number of 32, confirmed retaliatory murders remained the same, suggesting that journalists are being targeted.
India and Mexico registered four and three confirmed murders, respectively. Both feature on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index which spotlights countries where members of the press are “singled out for murder and the perpetrators go free”.
At least two journalists were killed in Myanmar, amid the military junta’s brutal crackdown on the media. No less than 26 journalists were imprisoned as of December 1, 2021.
The two deaths, both in December, represented CPJ’s highest yearly recorded tally for journalist killings in Myanmar since 1999.
Myanmar also emerged as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists after China in CPJ’s 2021 prison census.
Research shows that political groups, such as anti-government parties or combatants, were the most frequently suspected killers of journalists in 2021.
Mina Khairi, Afghan television anchor, was killed in June in Kabul when attackers detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) attached to a van she was riding in.
Yemeni photojournalist Rasha Abdullah al-Harazi, pregnant at the time, was killed by a car bomb on November 9, 2021. Her husband Mahmoud al-Atmi was the suspected target.
Three foreign journalists were killed in 2021 including Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui, who died in Afghanistan while covering clashes between Afghan forces and the Taliban in July.
Others were Spanish documentary film crew David Beriain and Roberto Fraile. Both were kidnapped and killed in Burkina Faso in April.
In February, Lebanese journalist Lokman Slim was the only confirmed killing in the Middle East and North Africa in 2021.
CPJ is investigating the deaths of 18 other journalists, including six from Mexico, to determine whether their killings were work-related.
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