100 Journalists Killed On the Job in 2006 - Another Deadly year

ONE hundred journalists were killed in 2006, making it the most savage and brutal year in the history of the modern media, according to Vienna-based International Press Institute.

The figure is largely due to the targeting of local journalists in Iraq, where 46 journalists were killed. However, the murder of journalists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Mexico, and Sri Lanka also added to the overall figure, the institute said in an annual review of press freedom in over 180 countries and regions.

Forty-eight journalists were killed in the Middle East and North African region. The murder and kidnapping of local journalists made reporting in Iraq the most dangerous assignment ever handed to media workers.

In Lebanon, where one journalist was killed, conflict and civil unrest undermined a vibrant media. Elsewhere, in Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria, a free press is almost entirely absent; while in Egypt and Yemen journalists were prosecuted.

In Asia, 29 journalists were killed, 10 of them in the Philippines. In the Americas, 17 journalists were killed, including two in the Caribbean.