Murders of journalists and media workers will increase by 50 percent in 2022 to reach 86 worldwide, marking one death every four days, the UN cultural body UNESCO said Monday.
Last year’s increase followed three years of lower violence against journalists, with an average of 58 murders per year in 2019-21.
“After years of steady decline, the rise in the number of journalists killed in 2022 is alarming,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement.
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“The authorities must make efforts to stop these crimes and ensure that the perpetrators are punished, because indifference is the main factor in this climate of violence,” he added.
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UNESCO found that no one was brought to court in 86 percent of cases.
Motives for killing journalists include “retaliation for reporting on organized crime, armed conflict or the rise of extremism, and cover sensitive subjects such as corruption, environmental crimes, abuse of power and protests,” UNESCO said.
At 44, more than half of the journalists who will die in 2022 will be in Latin America and the Caribbean.
And three-quarters of these killings occur outside of full-scale conflicts.
Mexico is the deadliest individual country with 19 journalists killed, followed by Ukraine, which has been fighting the Russian invasion, 10 dead and Haiti nine.
UNESCO found that around half of the journalists it recorded killed last year were off duty at the time, attacked “while travelling, at home, or in parking lots and other off-duty public places”.
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The trend “suggests that there is no safe space for journalists, even in their free time,” the body added.
Beyond murder, journalists can face “various forms of violence” including “disappearances, abductions and arbitrary detentions, legal harassment and digital violence, especially against women,” UNESCO said.
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