The Murder of Free Speech
Mar 15th, 2007 by John Little
Here is an interesting list of countries:
- Iraq
- Russia
- Columbia
- Philippines
- Iran
They represent the five most lethal countries for journalists according to INSI (International News Safety Institute).
Why should you care? Well, it’s like this. Journalists are killed for lots of reasons, by lots of different people, and the biggest threats are criminals, wars, and governments.
We understand war and crime, which means that it is ‘understandable’ when you see Iraq, Columbia and the Philippines on the list. That leaves Russia and Iran.
Russia is a murky statistic because there is a strong criminal element and there is this war going on in Chechnya. However, many have argued that the Russian government is the single biggest killer of journalists.
With Iran, it is very clear. Journalists aren’t being killed covering combat missions. There’s little, if any, crime.
So, who is killing them?
I think that you can do the math yourself.
The Devil