EDITORIAL: In a highly disturbing but hardly surprising development, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) announced on December 19 that the last quarter of 2023 has been the deadliest one for journalists in conflict zones since at least 2007, with 27 deaths of media workers recorded.
As the year draws to a close, UNESCO data tells us that killings of journalists in regions ravaged by war have almost doubled compared to the past three years.
While there has been an overall drop in killings of journalists while on duty, with 65 losing their lives this year compared to 88 in 2022, as pointed out by UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulav, “this overall drop conceals a very alarming phenomenon: the sharp increase in the number killed in conflict zones”.
The director-general rightly goes on to point out that “it is in this very type of situation that the work of journalists is most vital”.
It is quite evident that the situation in the Middle East has played a very vital role in imperiling the lives of journalists working in conflict-stricken areas.
UNESCO reports that Israel’s brutal bombing of Gaza and adjoining areas has so far resulted in 19 killings of journalists in Palestine, three in Lebanon and two in Israel since hostilities began on October 7.
Earlier in the month, the International Federation of Journalists had also revealed that more journalists had been killed during Israel’s war with Hamas than in any other conflict in more than 30 years, with the organisation going as far as saying that the deaths of media personnel in the Middle East had come at a scale and pace “without precedent”.
Israel’s blitzing of Gaza has seen a plethora of outrages unfold before the world. Within these horrors also lies that of the mass killing of journalists. With much of international independent media banned from the Gaza Strip, Palestinian journalists have endangered their lives to reveal to the world the tragedy unfolding in the region.
Even as these journalists have lost entire families, they have continued their work without fail. A case in point is that of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, who even after losing his wife, children and grandchild in an Israeli airstrike returned to work the very next day.
There is an increasing belief among journalists’ advocacy groups that Israel’s targeting of media personnel is a deliberate ploy and cannot be explained away by terming their deaths as collateral damage.
These suggestions are not necessarily rooted in conspiratorial thinking as anything that could adversely impact Western public opinion of Israel’s actions will be anathema to that country’s leadership.
And here we come to the crux of the matter: all authoritarian regimes, whether they are operating in conflict zones or not, inevitably end up targeting a free media as it is adverse public opinion they fear the most.
Suppressing a free media becomes a means of maintaining a carefully crafted narrative, preventing the dissemination of information that could erode the rulers’ legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
This is something that we have lived through in Pakistan as well, as the country has long been perceived as among the most dangerous in the world for journalists.
We must remember that the work of journalists in regions marred by conflicts is of vital importance. Their reporting sheds light on the human cost of war, exposes injustice and holds perpetrators accountable.
It is about time Western governments and media outlets that otherwise never tire of advocating for the rights of a free media ended their all too conspicuous silence and started holding Israel accountable for its targeting of journalists.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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