Killings of Journalists Show the Bloody Fingerprints of Organized Crime
Killings of Journalists Show the Bloody Fingerprints of Organized Crime
Friends and family members carrying the coffin of Héctor González Antonio, a journalist who was killed in Mexico in May.CreditCreditMarco Ugarte/Associated Press
By Liam Stack
Dec. 2, 2018
In Mexico, journalists have been killed by arson, gunned down at a cafe and shot execution-style while out at a bar. In Malta, one was killed by a bomb hidden in her car. In Ecuador, two were kidnapped and killed by a drug cartel, and in India, one was killed after exposing a “sand mafia” that sold dirt to real estate developers.
The last two years have been deadly for journalists, with 31 murdered around the world this year alone, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. But a report released this past week by Reporters Without Borders documented more than two dozen who had been killed by members of organized crime since the start of 2017, including fatal attacks in Mexico and Europe that underscored the entrenched power of criminal syndicates around the world.
So far this year, at least a dozen journalists have been killed by members of organized crime, according to the report, bringing the kind of violence often associated with war zones to countries like Malta or Brazil that are farther from the chaos of the front lines. In many cases, the crimes go unpunished by authorities who are hostile to the news media or are involved in criminal activity themselves.
“As opposed to Syria or Afghanistan, where the press is often killed by terrorist groups, this report shows the link when government and corrupt organizations work in tandem to silence the work of journalists in a really covert way,” said Noni Ghani, a spokeswoman for Reporters Without Borders. “These things don’t just happen in conflict zones or countries at war. They really happen everywhere.”
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/world/journalists-killed-reporters-without-borders.html