RSF: Number of journalists killed in 2023 falls despite Gaza massacre

The observation is paradoxical. While the conflict between Israel and Hamas has proven particularly deadly for journalists, with 17 killed while doing their jobs, the total number of reporters killed worldwide has never been this low since 2002.

According to Reporters Without Borders’ annual report released Thursday, 45 journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2023, up from 61 last year. We would have to go back more than 20 years to find a total lower than this year (33 in 2002), when more than a third of casualties were related to conflict in the Middle East, including 13 casualties in the Gaza Strip alone.

“This in no way diminishes the tragedy in Gaza, but we are seeing a regular decline, a far cry from the more than 140 journalists killed in 2012, then in 2013,” mainly due to the wars in Syria and Iraq, the secretary of state explains to AFP. RSF General Christophe Deloire.

Complaint to the International Criminal Court

The global tally, which ended on December 1, “does not include journalists killed outside their duties, those who were not killed as such, or those whose circumstances of death remain unknown,” Reporters Without Borders clarifies.

The organization lists a total of “63 journalists killed” in the Middle East since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, regardless of whether they were related to their profession or not. In detail, in addition to the 13 journalists killed “under Israeli fire” in Gaza, according to RSF, this war caused the death of three working journalists in Lebanon and another in Israel, killed by Hamas. In November, RSF filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court over “war crimes” committed against journalists in the Gaza Strip and against an Israeli journalist.

VIDEO. “I send you my love”: the last words of Roshdi Sarraj, the Palestinian journalist killed in the Gaza Strip

An AFP investigation published last week into the explosion that killed Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded six others, including a Reuters photographer, in southern Lebanon on October 13: “Christine Assi, seriously wounded, points at an Israeli tank. shell.

“Israel will have to face its responsibilities for many reasons”

Answering a question on this matter, a representative of the Israeli army emphasized that the place where the journalists were was “an active combat zone.” “Unsatisfactory” explanations, according to Christophe Deloire, who believes that “there are many elements that Israel must face in its responsibilities.”

The conflict in Ukraine has in turn cost the lives of two journalists in 2023, including AFP reporter Arman Soldin, “the only journalist to die in a country other than his own” that year, for a total of 11 since then. Russian invasion in February 2022.

“Self-censorship” in Mexico

The overall toll in 2023 is highlighted by a “marked decline” in deaths in Latin America: six journalists were killed, compared with 26 in 2022. In Mexico, the deadliest region for the profession after Gaza, there were four such deaths in 2023, up from 11 in 2023. last year. But that doesn’t mean press security is improving, “as evidenced by three kidnappings of reporters and armed attacks on four journalists in late 2023,” the report said.

“Given the record number of incidents of violence recorded in 2022, a number of journalists are more systematically calculating the risks they face, suggesting increased self-censorship and the spread of information black holes in this area,” RSF adds. .

The number of journalists detained globally has risen to 521, up from 569 in 2022, with Belarus becoming “one of the world’s three largest prisons, along with China and Burma”, and repeat imprisonments practiced in Turkey and Iran. Finally, 54 journalists were taken hostage, compared to 65 in 2022.