Moolchand Yadav

India's free press is perhaps the strongest pillar of its democracy, but Indian journalists continued to face numerous challenges in 2001, including physical threats, legal harassment, and more subtle pressures applied by the central government.

In the disputed territory of Kashmir, where fighting between local separatists, foreign fighters, and Indian security forces has long forced journalists to tread carefully in their reporting, the press continued to suffer violent assault. Most of the attacks against journalists documented by CPJ in 2001 were committed by security forces. In January, police beat up Surinder Singh Oberoi, a correspondent for the Agence France-Press news agency, as he was attempting to cover an attack on a security bunker in Srinagar by suspected militant separatists. Soldiers beat up several staff members of the Urdu-language weekly Chattan, one of Kashmir's most well-respected and widely circulated publications, after unknown assailants threw a grenade at a group of soldiers in Srinagar.

New York, January 3, 2002--A total of 37 journalists were killed worldwide as a direct result of their work in 2001, a sharp increase from 2000 when 24 were killed, according to CPJ research. At least 25 were murdered, almost all with impunity.

The dramatic rise is mainly due to the war in Afghanistan, where eight journalists were killed in the line of duty covering the US-led military campaign and a ninth journalist died of wounds sustained there two years ago. This was the highest death toll recorded for a single country since 1999, when 10 journalists were killed in Sierra Leone.

Nueva York, 3 de enero de 2002 -- Un total de 37 periodistas fueron asesinados en todo el mundo como resultado directo de su labor en el 2001, un brusco incremento en relación con el año 2000, cuando 24 fueron asesinados, según las investigaciones del Comité para la Protección de los Periodistas (CPJ, por sus siglas en inglés). Por lo menos 25 de ellos fueron asesinados, casi todos con impunidad.

El dramático aumento se debe principalmente a la guerra en Afganistán, donde ocho periodistas murieron cumpliendo su deber al cubrir la campaña militar encabezada por los Estados Unidos, y un noveno periodista murió de heridas que recibió en ese país hace dos años. Este es el mayor saldo de víctimas que se haya registrado en un solo país desde 1999, cuando 10 periodistas fueron asesinados en Sierra Leona.