The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says at least 70 journalists lost their lives while covering the wars and violence around the world this year.

The CPJ said on Monday that 29 reporters were killed in Syria and ten were slain in Iraq.

It says 60 journalists also have been kidnapped in Syria in 2013 alone and that half of them are still missing.

The CPJ report said that at least 63 journalists died covering the conflict in Syria since March 2011, when the crisis erupted.

Six journalists lost their lives during the unrest in Egypt this year, according to the New York-based organization, which has been tracking deaths among reporters and broadcasters since 1992.

�The Middle East has become a killing field for journalists. While the number of journalists killed for their work has declined in some places, the civil war in Syria and a renewal of sectarian attacks in Iraq have taken an agonizing toll,� said CPJ deputy director Robert Mahoney.

�The international community must prevail on all governments and armed groups to respect the civilian status of reporters and to prosecute the killers of journalists.�

The committee also stated that a number of journalists were killed after �reporting on sensitive subjects� in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Russia.

According to an annual CPJ report released on December 18, the committee found that 211 journalists were imprisoned in different countries in a snapshot survey conducted on December 1.

The CPJ report said this figure was the second highest number of journalists behind bars in its survey, topped only by the 232 last year.

According to the organization, there are 40 journalists in Turkish jails.

The committee has denounced the Turkish government for its intolerance toward free speech, describing the country as the �world�s worst jailor of journalists.�

By Press TV

 

 

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