Killings of journalists have increased by 50% in 2022, with 86 of them killed worldwide last year, an estimated “one every four days”denounces this Monday, January 16 Unesco. The UN agency based in Paris deplores a “reversal of the positive trend” recent years, when these assassinations had fallen to 58 per year on average between 2019 and 2021, against 99 in 2018.
In Algeria, freedom of the press is gradually stifled
“The sharp increase in the number of journalists killed in 2022 is alarming, regretted the director general of Unesco Audrey Azoulay. The authorities must redouble their efforts to put an end to these crimes and ensure that their perpetrators are convicted. »
“No safe place for journalists”
Of the 86 journalists who died last year – against 55 in 2021 – 19 were killed in Mexico, 10 in Ukraine and 9 in Haiti, the three bloodiest countries for the profession, points out Unesco.
About half of them “were not killed while performing their duties: they were traveling, at home, in parking lots or other public places when they were targeted”underlines the UN press release.
But “It is indeed the consequence of their work as journalists, the fact that they have investigated sensitive subjects”, insisted a UNESCO executive, interviewed by AFP. And its institution to point, that in these countries, “There is no safe place for journalists. »
