The most dangerous tasks for journalists last year was coverage of political unrest. Deaths during dangerous assignments such as the coverage of street protests reached their highest level on record.

Photographers and camera operators, often the most vulnerable during violent unrest, died at rates more than twice the historical average, CPJ says.

Seven journalists killed in Pakistan
According to the organization, Pakistan remained the deadliest country for the press for a second year with the seven deaths. Libya and Iraq, each with five fatalities, and Mexico, with three deaths, also ranked high worldwide for journalism-related fatalities.

CPJ is investigating another 35 deaths in 2011 to determine whether they were work-related.

Significant changes in the nature of journalist fatalities were identified last year. Seventeen journalists died while on dangerous assignments, many of them while covering the chaotic and violent confrontations between authorities and protesters during the uprisings that swept the Arab world.

“The greatest danger journalists are facing today in post-revolution Arab countries is the targeting of journalists by political forces hostile to anyone who exposes them,” said Ahmed Tarek, a reporter for the Middle East News Agency who was assaulted by police while covering protests in Alexandria, Egypt.

Targeted murders – which historically account for nearly three-quarters of journalist deaths – constituted less than half of the 2011 toll.

The 21 murders recorded last year were the lowest total since 2002. Nevertheless murders were reported in both Russia and the Philippines, two countries long plagued by deadly, anti-press violence.

Eight journalists died in combat situations in 2011, most of them during the Libyan revolution. The victims included the internationally acclaimed photojournalists. Photojournalists suffered particularly heavy losses last year.

Photographers and operators most vulnerable
Photographers and camera operators constituted about 40 percent of the overall death toll, about double the proportion CPJ has documented since it began keeping detailed fatality records in 1992.

Nine online journalists were killed for their work during the year. Internet journalists rarely appeared on CPJ’s death toll before 2008.

But since that time, as online journalists constitute an ever-greater proportion of the front-line reporting corps, the number of victims who worked online has increased steadily.

CPJ’s analysis also found a high proportion of freelancers among the 2011 victims. One-third of the toll was composed of freelance journalists, more than twice the proportion that freelancers have constituted over time.

Middle East and North Africa most dangerous
The heaviest losses occurred in nations across the Middle East and North Africa, where CPJ documented 19 work-related fatalities in all. Thirteen work-related deaths were documented in Asia, eight in the Americas, four in Africa, and two in Europe and Central Asia.

Five media support workers were killed worldwide. At least two journalists were reported missing during the year, both in Mexico. At least 11 journalists have been reported missing in Mexico over the past decade, by far the highest number worldwide. All are feared dead.

Among murder victims, more than 70 percent had reported receiving threats in the weeks before they died. Physical attacks are often preceded by phone or electronic threats.

CPJ explains that its staff members independently investigate and verify the circumstances behind each death. CPJ considers a case work-related only when its staff is reasonably certain that a journalist was killed in direct reprisal for his or her work. If the motives in a killing are unclear, but it is possible that a journalist died in relation to his or her work, CPJ classifies the case as “unconfirmed” and continues to investigate.

Iran – worst on imprisonment list
Pakistan’s neighbour Iran was the world’s worst jailer, with 42 journalists behind bars in 2011. Eritrea, China, Burma, Vietnam, Syria, and Turkey also ranked among the world’s worst.

CPJ’s census found stark differences among regions. For the first time since CPJ began compiling annual prison surveys in 1990, not a single journalist in the Americas was in jail for work-related reasons on December 1. Imprisonments also continued a gradual decline in Europe and Central Asia, where only eight journalists were jailed, the lowest regional tally in six years.

Unfortunately, those improvements were swamped by large-scale jailings across the Middle East and North Africa, where governments were holding 77 journalists behind bars, a figure that accounted for nearly 45 percent of the worldwide total. Asian and African nations also accounted for dozens of imprisonments, CPJ remarks.

But the 2011 census also found an alarming rise in the number of journalists held without charge or due process. Sixty-five journalists, accounting for more than a third of those in prison worldwide, were being held without any publicly disclosed charge, many of them in secret prisons without access to lawyers or family members.

Imprisoning journalists without charge is practiced most commonly by the government of Eritrea, the world’s second worst jailer of the press with 28 behind bars. Although many have been jailed for a decade, not a single Eritrean detainee has ever been publicly charged with a crime.

In a number of countries, authorities targeted journalists covering marginalized ethnic groups. Nowhere was this more evident than in China, where the government ruthlessly cracked down on editors and writers who sought to give voice to the nation’s Tibetan and Uighur minority groups.

86 online journalists jailed
Worldwide, 86 journalists whose work appeared primarily online were in jail on December 1, constituting nearly half of the census. Print journalists constituted the second largest professional group, with 51 jailed worldwide. The other detainees were from radio, television, and documentary filmmaking.

The number of journalists jailed in the Middle East and North Africa jumped by about 50 percent over last year.

The worldwide total was at its highest point since 1996, when CPJ recorded 185 journalists behind bars, a figure driven by Turkey’s suppression of ethnic Kurdish journalists. The increase over the 2010 tally was the biggest single-year jump in a decade.

At least 78 freelance journalists were in prison worldwide, constituting about 45 percent of the census, a proportion consistent with those seen in the previous two surveys. Freelance journalists can be vulnerable to imprisonment because they often do not have the legal and monetary support that news organizations can provide to staffers.

In 11 cases, governments used a variety of charges unrelated to journalism to retaliate against critical writers, editors, and photojournalists. Such charges ranged from drug possession to tax evasion.

Charges of criminal defamation, reporting “false” news, and engaging in ethnic or religious “insult” constituted the other charges filed against journalists in the census.

China and Cuba changed by other “leaders”
For the first time in more than a decade, China did not lead or jointly lead the list of countries jailing journalists. That it was supplanted in 2011 was a reflection of the high numbers in Iran rather than a significant drop in China.

For the first time since 1996, no Cuban journalists appeared on CPJ’s census. The Cuban government was holding as many as 29 journalists in 2003, following a massive crackdown on dissent. The last of those detainees was freed in April 2011.

CPJ’s list does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year. Journalists remain on CPJ’s list until the organization determines with reasonable certainty that they have been released or have died in custody. CPJ believes that journalists should not be imprisoned for doing their jobs.

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