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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq saw 340 journalists killed between 1990 and 2020, making it the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism over that time period, according to a new report from a press rights group.
The White Paper on Global Journalism that has documented the journalist killings was released on Thursday, the International Day for Human Rights, by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Of the 2,658 journalists killed worldwide between 1990 and 2020, 340 were from Iraq – with second-place Mexico recording 178 journalist deaths over the same 30-year period.
In the report's 2020 list, Iraq ranked equal third most dangerous country for journalists, alongside Afghanistan, India, and Nigeria. Of 42 journalist killings worldwide this year, three were in Iraq.
Danger to Iraqi activists and journalists has been high over the past year, amid nationwide anti-government protests that began in October 2019.
Prominent Iraqi journalist Ahmed Abdul Samad and his cameraman Safaa al-Ghali were shot dead by unknown gunmen in their car while covering Iraq’s ongoing protests for Dijlah TV in January.
Yussef Sattar, a journalist and activist, was killed during protests in Baghdad, also in January.
Nearly 560 protesters and security force members have been killed since October 2019, according to data provided in July by Hisham Dawoud, advisor to Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
Iraq came third only to Somalia and Syria for unpunished journalist killings in the 2020 index published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on October 28.
There are currently 139 unresolved cases of journalist killings in Iraq since 1993, according to UNESCO.
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