
Journalists killed in 2022
Photos of slain Mexican journalists are shown on the symbolically closed doors of the attorney general’s office in Mexico City during a vigil in memory of Fredid Román Román, a journalist shot to death in his car in Chilpancingo on August 22, 2022. (Reuters/Henry Romero)
At least 67 journalists and media workers were killed in 2022 – an almost 50% increase from 2021, CPJ found. The rise was driven by a high number of journalist deaths covering the Ukraine war and a sharp rise in killings in Latin America.
“These figures point to a precipitous decline in press freedom, with the highest number of journalist killings since 2018,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg. “Covering politics, crime, and corruption can be equally or more deadly than covering a full-scale war. Meanwhile, governments continue to imprison record numbers of journalists and fail to confront the spiraling violence and culture of impunity that have effectively silenced entire communities around the world.”
CPJ has confirmed that at least 41 journalists and media workers were killed in direct connection with their work, and is investigating the motives for the killings of 26 others to determine whether they were work-related. More than half of the 67 killings occurred in just three countries–Ukraine (15), Mexico (13), and Haiti (7), the highest yearly numbers CPJ has ever recorded for these countries.
More from the report:
Database of journalists killed in 2022 | Press release | Interactive map | Video
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Other press freedom news:
Daniel Pearl, the South Asia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in January 2002 in Pakistan and was murdered by his captors the next month.
In January 2021, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the release of Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, and acquitted him and three others of murder charges in Pearl’s case. The ruling came despite written evidence presented to the court and signed by Sheikh in which he confessed to a role in the kidnapping,
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