One of the first ones on the list from 1992 had an interesting backstory that's still relevant today:
The Turkish government assassinated two journalists [1] [2] for uncovering the fact the Turkish gov (or likely intel agencies) were financially supporting and training Turkish Hezbollah terrorists in their special forces offices. Why? These Hezbollah guys were being used as irregular warfare militia to kill marxist PKK (they killed 500 PPK members), in between their normal terrorist activity of killing regular citizens for being secular.
Then in February 2019 [3] the government decided to let all 100 of them out of prison on some questionable legal grounds (that the old court who sentenced them was Gulen-connected). But when PKK fighters sent to jail by the same court tried to appeal, on the exact same legal grounds, they were rejected. So essentially the current Erdoğan gov's policy is to openly support one terrorist group over others.
This is a classic example of Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes at work, where each one secretly support any number of sectarian groups when it suits their interests, while they ignore any tangental atrocities. Which was the waters Americans/Russians both attempted to wade into and saw it backfire multiple times.
It's terrible that journalists are killed. Press freedom is extremely important. But if these numbers are correct, they are probably good news. I don't think there has been any other point in history where worldwide just 70 journalists were killed every year.
Again, if these numbers are correct, many other professions are far more exposed to politically or financially motivated violence (and the numbers cover many deaths that are not intentionally inflicted). Another way of saying it is that journalism is generally a very safe profession if these numbers are correct. Also, please note that a large part of the deaths occur in the same few countries.
I was aware that journalism can sometimes be dangerous, what I didn't realize though is just how common the murder (or work related death by aggression) of journalists is.
Many of these are in war zones, quite a few by IEDs and similar devices, but many are stabbings, shootings, show signs of torture, involved kidnap.
I think it's important to distinguish between journalists who work in dangerous zones and get killed by accident vs intentional killings, usually to suppress the press. There isn't much you can do about the former but the latter is really dangerous and very tempting for authoritarians and others who want to stay in the shadows.
>I think it's important to distinguish between journalists who work in dangerous zones and get killed by accident vs intentional killings, usually to suppress the press.
Which I mentioned in my comment.
The site lets you filter (for motive confirmed), 861 of the 1342 motive-confirmed were flat out murdered with 301 killed in crossfire and 172 on 'dangerous assignments'.
That's 64% and I imagine the remaining unconfirmed motive ones are a similar percentage.
What makes this so surprising is the individual risks these people take.
By comparison on average 1,300 truckers die in the US each year out of 3.5 million making it far more dangerous on average. However, that’s spread fairly evenly with only a tiny fraction of journalists entering war zones etc.
I am only including truckers dying from trucking accidents which seems like a direct occupational hazard. They both die from other things on and off the job.
PS: Automobile accidents are also often a very nasty way to go.
Southern-eastern Turkey where all of this is taking place is as middle eastern as it gets. So in this context is an apt comparison.
Playing both sides doesn't have to mean directly arming and training people who kill innocent civilians for not being religious enough, or engaged in any other sort of extreme violence against non-combatants.
> It (of Sunni thought) began as an oppositional force against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), though later they have targeted both the PKK and people who they considered to be with low morals (people who drank alcohol, wore mini-skirts etc.).
Turkey is part of the Middle East by any useful definition, including Wikipedia’s [1]. The parts of Turkey where these groups hail from are also the parts that are the closest to the Iraq, Syria and Iran borders.
Err, sure it is. Geographically and politically, Turkey is associated with the Middle East. The German term "Naher Osten" (Near East, because it's not that far from Europe) described the Osman empire's area that were outside of Europe. This is the first time I hear somebody argue that Turkey isn't part of the Middle East - what leads to you to believe that?
The Turkish government assassinated two journalists [1] [2] for uncovering the fact the Turkish gov (or likely intel agencies) were financially supporting and training Turkish Hezbollah terrorists in their special forces offices. Why? These Hezbollah guys were being used as irregular warfare militia to kill marxist PKK (they killed 500 PPK members), in between their normal terrorist activity of killing regular citizens for being secular.
Then in February 2019 [3] the government decided to let all 100 of them out of prison on some questionable legal grounds (that the old court who sentenced them was Gulen-connected). But when PKK fighters sent to jail by the same court tried to appeal, on the exact same legal grounds, they were rejected. So essentially the current Erdoğan gov's policy is to openly support one terrorist group over others.
This is a classic example of Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes at work, where each one secretly support any number of sectarian groups when it suits their interests, while they ignore any tangental atrocities. Which was the waters Americans/Russians both attempted to wade into and saw it backfire multiple times.
[1] https://cpj.org/data/people/halit-gungen/index.php
[2] https://cpj.org/data/people/namik-taranci/index.php
[3] https://ipa.news/2019/05/22/100-members-of-the-turkish-hezbo...