This year is shaping up to be the deadliest ever for journalists with 72 killed so far for 2012, the opening of the International Press Institute (IPI) Congress was told on Sunday in Trinidad.
Delivering her report on the state of press freedom worldwide, IPI executive director Alison Bethel McKenzie said the highest number of deaths so far has been in uprising-ravaged Syria but she also highlighted the dire situation in Mexico where journalist killings have led to some outlets declaring that they would no longer cover the drug-fuelled crime rampage. In 2011, 102 journalists were killed. The highest number of deaths recorded by the IPI since it began keeping count was 110 in 2009.
Speaking on the opening day of the congress at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port-of-Spain, McKenzie said it was deeply disturbing that in a year so “massively dominated” by the Arab Spring and its demands for greater freedoms that so many journalists could be
