War correspondents have historically faced danger from air strikes, crossfires, landmines etc., but increasingly, they bear the wounds from directed hostility as acts of vengeance. Journalists have faced death threats as well as actual attacks from governments, organized crime, protestors, terrorists and rogue state actors.
Where are the most dangerous places in the world to be a reporter? What follows is a top-ten list of sorts, with brief descriptions of each country’s unique problems.
The list is fluid, regularly revised over time as governments change and levels of political repression ebb and flow. The reasons why journalists are jailed, tortured, disappeared or killed vary from country to country but often share two similar themes. They are targeted either for the preservation of power or the desire to keep illicit activities in the dark. The list includes those killed by dangerous assignment, crossfire, and murder.
Press Freedom
There is a strong correlation between countries with limited press freedoms and the level of danger faced by those who choose to cover newsworthy events anyway, often exposing the misdeeds and malfeasance of the powerful. When the press are portrayed as an enemy of the state or feared as a potential vehicle for exposing criminal activity, local journalists and foreign correspondents are stripped of their identity as the medium for the people. As a result, their social standing is diminished to the point of losing the free-speech protections generally, but not always, afforded journalists in western countries.
Each of the listed countries operates in the dark end of the spectrum of international ranking for press freedoms. Reporters Without Borders, known by its French initials, RSF (Reporters Sans Frontières), produces the World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) of 180 countries. At the end of each country's outline, I have included their respective WPFI ranking.
From the RSF About page:
“Freedom of expression and information is the first and most important of freedoms. How can we combat atrocities against civilians, tackle the tragedy of child soldiers, defend women’s rights or defend our environment if journalists aren’t free to report the facts, draw attention to abuses and appeal to the public’s conscience?
There are countries where the torturers stopped torturing when the media began talking about them, and corrupt politicians abandoned shady practices when investigative journalists published compromising information.”
Much of the data for this article originated from the Special Reports produced by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Here are the top ten countries where journalists have been killed in the five years from 2016 through 2020.
#10 -Brazil (4 dead)
Brazil, Colombia, and the United States actually tied for tenth with four journalists killed. However, four reporters were killed in the US during one horrific incident, known as the Capital Gazette Shooting. On June 28, 2018, a man named Jarrod Ramos shot and killed four reporters and a sales associate because he was angry at something the paper had written about him. In April of 2018, in Colombia, two reporters and their driver were murdered by drug traffickers in the town of Mataje, along the Ecuadorian border.
I ranked Brazil as the lead for the tenth spot because of the rising levels of judicial and police harassment, threats, arrests, and the preventing of the press from covering protests, many of which are violently repressed by police.
For example, the level of harassment levied at Glenn Greenwald demonstrates not only the contempt the Bolsonaro government has for the press but the impunity with which it torments journalists. The Washington Post reported last year that Brazilian prosecutors had charged Mr. Greenwald with cybercrimes for leaking cell-phone messages that “...cast doubt on the impartiality of a corruption investigation that helped pave the way for the rise of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.”
WPFI Ranking: 107
#9 Libya (5 dead)
Libya remains in the top-ten list of dangerous places for journalists despite an exodus of media professionals since the revolution. RSF reported in 2018 that scores of journalists have fled the country and eight media outlets moved operations to other Middle-Eastern nations.
“The state has been torn apart by the power struggle between two rival factions, one in the west and one in the east, a fight that has made journalistic independence impossible and has turned journalists into targets.” - RSF.
In Libya, journalists are detained by the UN-backed Government of National Accord for covering protests. In May of 2020, after a secret trial, photojournalist Ismail Abuzreiba al-Zway was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for “communicating with a television channel that supports terrorism.” Libya’s ongoing civil war between the Libyan National Army in the east and the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, could add to the toll of imprisoned and murdered journalists.
WPFI Ranking: 164
#8 Philippines (9 dead)
Rodrigo Duterte won his election for president by promising to eliminate drug dealers. He has mainly eliminated them through the use of extrajudicial homicides. As his reign has grown more powerful, he has trained his sights on those journalists who dare to report on his corrupt and unlawful presidency.
All nine of the journalists killed in the Philippines were murdered. In June of 2020, RSF reported that a woman journalist, Maria Ressa, was sentenced to six years in jail because of an article that was published in 2012, years before her “crime” was even on the books. Though a judge initially dismissed her case due to its retroactive nature, Duterte revived it, based on a convenient misreading of the nature of the law. RSF called the charges brought in Manila, “A shocking judicial masquerade.”
WPFI Ranking: 136
#7 Somalia (10 dead)
Reporting for Voice of America (VOA) in May of 2020, Mohamed Olad Hassan said, “much of the country is controlled by non-state entities or by autonomous regional governments that either do not or only barely recognize the central government’s authority.”
The main culprits are the militant Islamic group, al-Shabab, who seeks to overthrow the current Somali government and institute strict Sharia law. This does not mean the central government is innocent. They have routinely arrested journalists in an attempt to silence them, a charge the government denies. According to VOA, the government does not hold press conferences, at which reporters can ask questions, but instead issues pre-recorded messages through state-run media.
Mr. Hassan recently reported that, due to multiple clashes in Mogadishu, including attacks on military personnel, and a challenge to the presidency by opposition candidates, Somalia could slip back into civil war.
WPFI Ranking: 163
#6 Yemen (13 dead)
The civil war made it a tough call to place India ahead of Yemen. Both countries have had thirteen journalists killed in the five years discussed here. In 2016, the head of the Houthis, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, declared in a televised speech that “media workers are more dangerous to our country than the traitors and mercenaries of security forces”. That level of hostility towards journalists creates a smothering layer of fear among those whose only ambition is to report the news to the people.
COVID-19 has spread rapidly throughout the country, especially in overcrowded prisons, within which some journalists are housed. A report published by the Euro-Med Human Rights monitor detailed the inhumane conditions under which the Houthi’s held journalists, subjecting them to regular beatings, psychological abuse, starvation diets; overcrowded, cramped cells and no contact with family.
WPFI Ranking: 167
#5 India (13 dead)
India also had thirteen journalists killed, but I rated India higher because of the surge in reporters being arrested. In February of this year, the media outlet, The Hindu, reported the highest number of journalists arrested in a one-month period in thirty years. In 2020, sixty-seven journalists were arrested or detained. Often the charges are akin to sedition or they fall under terror umbrellas because of negative commentary about the state.
The closeout rate for murders of journalists in India is pitiful. Of the thirty killed since 2010, there have only been three convictions. There are innumerable accounts of harassment and death threats, along with raids on media organizations for infractions including the publishing of cartoons that mock the government.
WPFI Ranking: 142
#4 Iraq (18 dead)
In the ten years leading up to 2021, nineteen of the forty-four journalists killed had been murdered. That number includes sixteen in the first half of that ten-year period and only three in the second half. In the past five years, fifteen of eighteen journalists were killed by crossfire (10) and dangerous assignment (5). These numbers however, can be tricky depending upon which time frames are used as search parameters.
In Iraq, although the total number of deaths has decreased over a five-year span, that trend is misleading. According to RSF, six of the eighteen journalists who died over that five-year span were killed in 2020. Four of these journalists were shot to death while actively covering antigovernment protests. The other two, who reported on Islamic State activities, were murdered at their homes. These types of killings suggest a country in upheaval. Per this report by Middle-East Eye, Iraq was the second deadliest country for journalists in 2020.
WPFI Ranking: 162
#3 Mexico (22 dead)
As discussed in the 2020 Roundup by RSF, in recent years, reporters/journalists are being killed more often in countries that are “at peace.” They cite Mexico’s rise in murdered journalists as a prime example. However, anyone studying cartel violence and political corruption in that country would be hard pressed to declare it at peace.
The truth is that Mexico, with its proliferating cartel rivalries—due in part to the pyrrhic kingpin strategy employed by the US and Mexico—is in a constant state of war, especially when one considers the level of sophistication of both intel and weapons possessed by the TCOs (Transnational Criminal Organizations) and the fact that criminal gangs have infiltrated the government and law enforcement at every level. The amount of high-powered weaponry, including 50-calibre rifles, being smuggled into Mexico is staggering.
Journalists have not only been killed but tortured as a warning to others who dare to name names in their publications. Many of the murdered journalists were tortured to death.
A major problem facing journalists in Mexico is the impunity with which the criminal groups act.
I spoke with the feminist journalist Celia Guerrero, who told me, “Faced with threats from criminal groups to the media and journalists, and the absolutely violent climate, many opted for self-censorship, they no longer reported the acts of violence and local reporters stopped covering criminal topics.”
The self-censoring, coupled with systemic corruption, leaves the gangs and their corrupted state actors to operate free of scrutiny. People left to their own whims will often do unspeakable things. The better angels of Steven Pinker’s research pulsate over statistical trendlines, but don’t venture into the central state of Guanajuato.
Expect more from my interview with Celia Guerrero, a thoughtful and decent voice quietly seeping into the Mexican ethers.
WPFI Ranking: 143
#2 Afghanistan (26 dead)
The twenty-year United States war with the Taliban and the internal struggles for control of Afghanistan have resulted in that country being one of the most hazardous places in the world, for anyone. Despite a tenuous peace deal struck between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the Taliban want control once all US troops have left the country.
As one Talib said to Dexter Filkins, reporting from Afghanistan for The New Yorker, “We’re not sharing power with anyone.” Mr. Filkins’s riveting article describes a Taliban that has no compunction about “killing elites.” The protracted war among armies may be waning, but hundreds of reporters, judges, prosecutors and activists have been killed in targeted attacks.
Finally, although it's easy to see the Taliban as the main perpetrators of the violence—they brag about it—growing evidence suggests the Afghan government is behind some of the killings as a way to protect their fragile status quo.
WPFI Ranking: 122
#1 Syria (41 dead)
The protracted civil war has ravaged the country and there’s no end in sight to the various conflicts or the attendant dangers faced by journalists covering the combat. Since the war began in 2011, it is estimated that well more than three-hundred journalists have been killed in airstrikes, or executed. Imprisonment and torture of journalists is not uncommon. Hundreds of journalists have disappeared, either arrested or kidnapped. Hundreds more have fled the country, fearing reprisals from the stakeholders in the war.
American freelance journalist, Austin Tice, has been held in captivity for eight years, and is feared dead, though no confirmation has been received regarding his status. In their 2021 Report on Syria, Human Rights Watch stated, “Meanwhile, human rights abuses in government-held territory continued unabated. Authorities brutally suppressed every sign of re-emerging dissent, including through arbitrary arrests and torture. Authorities also continued to unlawfully confiscate property and restrict access to areas of origin for returning Syrians.” Journalists attempting to report on these abuses of power face harsh reprisals, including execution.
WPFI ranking: 174
It was the death tally that determined the rankings of these dangerous theaters, but those numbers don’t tell the whole story. When a journalist is in the heat of battle, or shot or captured, tortured, imprisoned without contact with family or their employers; when they face death threats or threats to family members, who is to say that one place is more dangerous that another?
As a Sheriff’s Officer in Newark, New Jersey, we often said that many of the survivors of shootings did so because of poor marksmanship, not because the shooters lacked homicidal intent. The point is, statistics can fluctuate year to year, depending on surges of violence or tentative peace accords.
None of the particulars change the fact that to be a conflict correspondent is a dangerous, emotionally draining occupation and we should be grateful that so many are willing to risk so much to help us see the world. No one is free without a free press.
If you can support RSF or CPJ in any way, I urge you to do so. In many cases, their efforts are the only means by which an imprisoned journalist can hope to contact family and earn their freedom.