As the new year 2025 draws closer, a crucial report by the ‘Reporters without Borders’ has revealed that the country of Bangladesh has emerged as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. Reporters Without Borders, called Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) in French, is an international non-profit organization safeguarding the right to information. Its headquarters is in Paris, France.
As per the 2024 Round-up published by RSF, Palestine is the most dangerous country for journalists, followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh. The ranking was done based on various attacks on journalists, including murder and kidnappings.
In its recently published 2024 Round Up report, the RSF has stated that there has been an alarming increase in targeted attacks on journalists, especially during political unrest and protests. As per the report, both India’s neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh saw disturbing protests that claimed the lives of several journalists while on duty.
“A violent crackdown in Bangladesh during July protests over a controversial public job quota system claimed the lives of five journalists. The protests led to a major political crisis and the eventual ouster of Sheikh Hasina. The targeting of journalists by security forces was not coincidental, as the authorities sought to suppress coverage of the mass uprising that resulted in the overthrow of the government,” the report said.
It further added that Bangladesh’s security Forces had also posed threats to press freedom in the year 2024. As per the report, around 54 journalists lost their lives in the year 2024 among whom 2 were women. Of these 54, around 16 breathed their last in Palestine, 7 in Pakistan, 5 in Bangladesh, 5 in Mexico, and 4 in Sudan. Further, it said that over half of the journalists died while reporting facts from the conflict zone.
“Dying is not an acceptable risk of journalism. This fatalism cannot prevail, and passive tenses should not be used: journalists do not die, they are killed; they are not in prison, regimes lock them up; they do not disappear, they are kidnapped. These crimes violate international law and too often go unpunished. Journalists are no longer collateral victims but targets, inconvenient witnesses, and even bargaining chips, pawns in a political game,” said Thibaut Bruttin, Director General, RSF while condemning the deaths.
On 28th August this year, 32-year-old Sarah Rahanum a newsroom editor at Bengali language Gazi Television (GTV) who lived in Kallyanpur was found dead in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Her body was found in Hatirjheel Lake. On 4th August, a Hindu journalist named Pradip Kumar Bhowmik was murdered by the ‘protesters’ in Bangladesh. He died as the ‘protestors’ laid siege on the Rayganj Press Club in Sirajganj. Mehedi Hasan, a journalist with Dhaka Times, was killed while covering clashes between protesters and security forces in Dhaka. Apart from these, two more deaths of journalists were reported from the country in the recent times.
The data further highlighted that Palestine was the most dangerous country for journalists on duty. It stated that since October 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israeli civilians, around 35 journalists have been killed in connection with their work. Otherwise, around 145 of a total of 157 media deaths have been reported alone from the country.
“Palestine is the most dangerous zone for journalists, recording a higher death toll than any other country or territory in the past five years. Worldwide, the number of journalists killed for covering conflict zones — in the Gaza region, Iraq, Sudan, Myanmar, and Ukraine has reached a record high since 2020. Due to the large number of journalists killed in Pakistan (7) and the protests that rocked Bangladesh (5), Asia kept its place as the region with the second-highest number of murders,” the report added.
It is crucial to note that the Islamists in Bangladesh have been launching targeted attacks on the minorities in the country since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government. The interim government recently accepted that around 88 such incidents had happened in the past 3.5 months. Now it has come to the fore that not only minorities but also media professionals have been facing threats by the Bangladesh security personnel.
Apart from this, the RSF reports state that countries like China, Myanmar, and Israel have topped the list of countries that have detained journalists in the due course of their jobs. China has detained around 124 journalists, Myanmar 61 and Israel 41.
Further, 55 journalists have been kept hostage in the past year of which 38 are held hostage in Syria, 9 in Iraq, 5 in Yemen, 2 in Mali, and 1 in Mexico. Of these further, 25 have been held hostage by ISIS.
Notably, around 100 journalists are currently missing around the world as stated by the RSF. “More than a quarter of them have disappeared in the last 10 years. Mexico stands out as the most dangerous country, accounting for over 30% of all cases of missing journalists,” it said.
These disappearances, often attributed to authoritarian or negligent governments highlight the urgent need to strengthen the protection of journalists and combat impunity.
