Media killings, deaths hit 132 in 2009, report says

Not a good year to be a journalist , Especially in a third world Country !

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Philippines, Mexico, Somalia and Russia were the most dangerous countries for journalists in 2009, a global media group reported on Wednesday.

A total of 132 journalists and support staff were killed or died while working last year, the International News Safety Institute, INSI, said.

Just three international reporters were among those deliberately targeted, the dead being overwhelmingly local journalists covering dangerous stories like high-level crime and corruption for national news media.

The Brussels-based INSI, which monitors statistics from around the world, said 98 of the dead were murdered because of their reporting activities.

"Journalists continue to die because they dare to shine a light on the darkest corners of societies. This is the shocking price we pay for our news," INSI Director Rodney Pinder said in a statement released in Geneva with the body's annual figures.

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Pakistan: Peshawar Press Club bombed.

Back on October 17th we posted: Pakistan: Taliban to media. "You're next!"

You better start calling us Mujahideen! You got that? And if you keep calling us terrorists - we're going to act like terrorists and blow you up!

From the Daily Times:

Meanwhile, a Taliban group also sent two letters to the Lahore Press Club – one on October 12 and the other on October 14 – warning that if the media “does not stop portraying us as terrorists ... we will blow up offices of journalists and media organisations”.

Well, today they carried out the first direct attack on a media institution in Peshawar leaving 3 dead and 23 injured. There had been advance warning but according to the Press Club president:

‘...there is no way to stop a suicide bomber coming to explode himself.’

From Dawn:

‘It was a suicide bombing,’ city police chief Liaquat Ali Khan told reporters.

Remains of the bomber and a constable guarding the entrance were scattered along the driveway to the basement of the club and police searched for forensic evidences in the shattered windowpanes.

According to witnesses, the teenage bomber of fair complexion and sporting long hair exploded himself when police guard Riazuddin Khan tried to search him.

‘You want to search? Okay, search,’ a witness quoted the bomber as saying. ‘And then there was the explosion,’ Minhaj, an employee of the district security department said. He was among those injured by ball bearings and shrapnels.

According to a bomb disposal expert, the weight of the explosives used by the bomber was about 8kgs. ‘It is more than what they normally use in suicide bombings,’ Khurshid Khan said. (Ed. note: Ugh.)

On Monday, the Press Club hosted a seminar: ‘Conspiracies of US and India against Pakistan’ . Some Pakistan moonbats (echoing many in the Pakistan media assumed the blame the US appeasement position and advocated singing Kumbayah with the Taliban. I guess we can see how that worked out.

Meanwhile, a bomb threat called into a Lahore media center caused chaos, but yielded no bomb.

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