10% of Active Journalists in Iraq Were Killed in 2006

10% of Active Journalists in Iraq Were Killed in 2006: "After an estimated 10 percent of active journalists in Iraq died in 2006, the rest are asking themselves what lies ahead for them in the New Year.

A report released by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RWB, also known as Reporters sans Frontieres), on the last day of 2006 described Iraq as 'the world's most dangerous country for the media.' The group said it had called upon Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to put a stop to 'hostile accidents' against journalists.

The RWB says 64 journalists and media assistants were killed in Iraq during 2006, 'more than twice the number in the 20-year Vietnam war.' Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, 139 journalists have been killed in Iraq, 90 percent of them Iraqis, RWB says.

The survey says what journalists in Iraq know too well.

'The security situation in Baghdad and other insecure parts of the country made journalists suffer heavily, and be victimised in the worst possible form in the conflict in 2006,' Hamid Mohammed Ali, member of the administrative council of the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate (KJS) told IPS. The KJF is one of the two press unions in Iraq, with the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, that are recognised by the International Federation of Journalists."

(Via AlterNet.)