Middle East & North Africa

Three years ago, on November 23, 2009, 30 journalists and two media workers were brutally killed in the southern Philippine city of Maguindanao while travelling in a convoy with the family and supporters of a local politician. To this day, not a single suspect has been convicted, though local authorities have identified close to 200. The botched trial has been stalled with procedural hurdles. Victims' families have been threatened and key witnesses have been slain.

New York, November 20, 2012--Two Israeli airstrikes killed three journalists in the Gaza Strip today, according to news reports. The fatal attacks followed a series of Israeli strikes earlier in the week that injured at least nine journalists and damaged news outlets.

New York, November 19, 2012--Israeli authorities must immediately halt airstrikes targeting news media offices in the Gaza Strip, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today following a series of strikes that injured at least nine journalists and damaged several offices.

New York, November 15, 2012--Yemeni authorities must immediately investigate separate attacks on the homes of two journalists in the southern province of Daleh, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

New York, November 14, 2012--A Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped in Syria in mid-October appeared in a short video last week pleading for her embassy to meet the demands of her captors, according to news reports. At least two other international journalists are believed to be held captive in Syria and the whereabouts of a third are unknown, according to CPJ research.

Here are the facts:

• A journalist is killed in the line of duty somewhere around the world once every eight days.
• Nearly three out of four are targeted for murder. The rest are killed in the crossfire of combat, or on dangerous assignments such as street protests.
• Local journalists constitute the large majority of victims in all groups.
• The murderers go unpunished in about nine out of 10 cases.
• The overall number of journalists killed, and the number of journalists murdered, have each climbed since the 1990s.

New York, November 9, 2012--Iranian authorities must immediately explain the sudden death of imprisoned blogger Sattar Beheshti, who had previously complained about severe mistreatment in custody, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ also demands that the government launch a full investigation into the suspicious death and to immediately halt its intense harassment of the victim's family.

New York, November 5, 2012--A critical Sudanese freelance journalist was found on the side of a road in Khartoum on Friday after being reported missing on October 29, according to news reports. Somaya Ibrahim Ismail Hundosa had been tortured and her head shaved while she was held captive, the reports said.

Hundosa was found in a remote area of the capital, news reports said. Her family said that she had been subjected to "physical torture and beating with whips" and that she had been told her head was shaved because "it looked like the hair of Arabs while she belonged to the slaves in Darfur," according to the pro-democracy group Grifina (We Are Fed Up). The journalist is now recovering at home with her family.

Approximately 30 journalists are targeted and murdered every year, and on average, in only three of these crimes are the killers ever brought to justice. Other attacks on freedom of expression occur daily: bloggers are threatened, photographers beaten, writers kidnapped. And in those instances, justice is even more rare. Today, the Committee to Protect Journalists joins freedom of expression advocates worldwide in a 23-day campaign to dismantle one case at a time a culture of impunity that allows perpetrators to gag journalists, bloggers, photographers and writers, while keeping the rest of us uninformed.