Year 2010 witnessed decrease in journalists victims, 7 reporters killed in Iraq:

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The year 2010 had witnessed a considerable decrease of 25%, in the number of journalists killed all over the world, whilst 7 Iraqi journalists have been killed during the year, according to a report by ‘Journalists Without Borders‘ about the freedom of press in the past year. “2010 had witnessed the abduction of 51 reporters, the detention of 535, threats or aggressions against 1,374, imposition of observation on 504 media organizations, immigration of 137 reporters out of their homeland, detention of 152 Internet reporters and aggression on 52 others, along with harming 62 states due to the observation imposed on the Internet,” the report, copy of which landed in IraqiNews.com news agency said on Saturday. The report pointed out that the year 2010 had witnessed the killing of  57 journalists during carrying out of their professional duty, compared with 76 killed in 2009, thing that represented a 25% decrease in the number of victims among reporters, along with the decrease of journalists killing in the areas of conflict during the past few years, admitting the “difficulty of defining the killers among the criminal gangs, armed and extremist religious groups or states who carried the attacks against journalists. Within the said framework, the Secretary General of ‘Journalists Without Borders,’ Francois Juliar, pointed out to the “decrease of the number of jounalists, killed in areas of conflict, compared with the previous years, whilst journalists remain to be victims of criminals and illigitimate traders of crime, with Mafias and militias remain in the forefront of killers of journalists in the world; that is why all those who care for the future must illiminate this phenomena.” The report confirmed that among 67 countries that witnessed murder crimes or assassinationa against journalists, Pakistan, Iraq and Mexico, had been “the most violent areas against jouranlists over the past decade, with Iraq that witnessed the killing of 7 journalists in 2010, compared with 4 in 2009, most of them killed after the withdrawal of the U.S. combat forces in August, 2010, “whilst Iraqi journalists are surrounded by those who oppose their independence, including local authorities, corrupt groups and extremist religious movements.” FH (A) / SKH 12