A total of 132 journalists and media support staff died worldwide covering the news in 2009, an international media safety organization has reported.
The International News Safety Institute (INSI) said in a press-release on Tuesday that "despite repeated international calls for action to constrain the bloodshed" last year has brought "one of the worst yearly tolls on record."
"Journalists continue to die because they dare to shine a light on the darkest corners of societies," the document quoted INSI Director Rodney Pinder as saying.
"This is the shocking price we pay for our news," Pinder said.
According to the INSI, at least 98 media workers who died last year were targeted and murdered because of their work, while 11 were killed in crossfire and 23 died in accidents with no apparent links to their professional duties.
This "bloodiest single incident ever recorded for the news media" made the Philippines the most dangerous country in the world for journalists in 2009 with a total of 37 dead over the year.
After the Philippines, the bloodiest countries in 2009 were Mexico with 11 killed, Somalia and Russia with 9 each, Pakistan with 8 and Iraq with 5, the INSI reported.
Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasia Baburova was shot dead on January 19 in downtown Moscow, together with lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was acting on behalf of a family whose daughter was murdered by a Russian officer in Chechnya. Markelov died at the scene and Baburova lost her struggle for life shortly afterwards in hospital.
Chechen rights activist Natalya Estemirova, who had been investigating kidnappings and disappearances in Chechnya for the Russian human rights group Memorial, was abducted and murdered on July 15 in the south Russian republic. She was included in the list of journalists due to her articles for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
BRUSSELS, January 6 (RIA Novosti)
