Twas a week before Christmas and all through the world
Assassinations galore as madness unfurled
December 19th, 2016:
Turkey - Russian ambassador shot and killed
A Turkish riot policeman shot and killed the Russian ambassador to Turkey. Ambassador Andrey Karlov was gunned down on Monday evening as he was delivering a speech at an Ankara art gallery. The assassin was killed in a shoot-out with security forces.
The attacker was identified as Mevlut Mert Altintas, a 22-year-old officer with the Turkish riot police. He yelled "Allahu Akbar" and began screaming about Russian involvement in Aleppo and elsewhere.
SWITZERLAND - Shooting at Islamic Centre leaves 3 injured
Three people were injured in a shooting at an Islamic center in downtown Zurich on Monday.
A male suspect entered the center’s prayer room, often used as a mosque, at around 5:30pm local time and opened fire. Three men aged 30, 35 and 56 were injured in the attack, according to police.
The suspect was described by police as a man of "about 30 years" who was wearing dark clothing and a dark wool cap.
A short time after the attack a man’s body was found in Gessnerallee, an area "close" to the scene.
Zurich police say they are investigating if the body has any connection to the mosque attack.
Germany - 12 Dead, 48 injured as terrorist ran down people in Christmas market
Germany is reeling after a truck plowed into a Christmas market in western Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more in a suspected terrorist attack.
The incident took place at 8:00pm on the pedestrianized Breitscheidplatz, home to one of Berlin’s largest Christmas markets. It is beside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and also close to the city’s key shopping mile, Kurfuerstendamm.
At least 12 people have died and 48 others were injured in the Christmas market truck incident, Berlin's police said.
It is believed the truck was driven by a Polish man, brother to the owner. There is some suspicion that the truck and driver were hijacked. The incident may have been inspired by the Bastille Day massacre in Nice, last summer, when 86 were killed and more than 400 injured.
Top 6 countries, at least, where reporters are killed are Islamic countries. Yet, Europe insists on bringing this violence into their midst. Is it any wonder there is terror in the streets?
107 reporters killed in Syria since conflict began
Syria was the deadliest country for journalists in 2016, according to a report. At least 14 journalists were killed there in the line of duty this year alone, bringing the total number of war reporters who have died since the conflict broke out to at least 107.
According to the report by international press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), deaths in combat or crossfire reached their highest number since 2013, as conflicts in the Middle East showed no sign of ending.
Journalists sent into the thick of the action appear to be at high risk of not only losing their lives, but of being kidnapped and executed by Islamic State and other terrorist groups.
“Islamic State is responsible for the disappearance of at least 11 journalists since 2013. They are feared dead, but do not appear in CPJ’s data on killed journalists because their fate cannot be confirmed,” the report said. It added that the two professions that proved to be the most dangerous in 2016 were those of photographer and cameraman.
Twenty percent of the journalists killed in 2016 were freelancers.
In April, Syrian journalist Zaher al-Shurqat was shot in the head by a masked man in the southern Turkish town of Gaziantep. IS claimed responsibility for the murder, making al-Shurqat the fourth Syrian journalist the group claimed to have killed in Turkey since October 2015, according to CPJ.
Global reporter's assassins leaders
At least 48 journalists were killed in relation to their work between January 1 and December 15, 2016, the international press freedom group said.
“More than half of the journalists killed in the year died in combat or crossfire, for the first time since CPJ began keeping records. The conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and Somalia claimed the lives of 26 journalists who died covering the fighting,” the New York-based group said.
Among those killed by the fighting in Syria this year was 20-year-old photographer and video journalist Osama Jumaa, who died in June while reporting from Aleppo for the international photo agency Images Live.
Iraq proved to be among the “top three most deadly countries for the fourth year in a row,” with six journalists killed in 2016, according to the report.
In Yemen, the number of journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty has also been on the rise as fighting escalated. Six journalists were killed this year, bringing the total to 12 since 2014, CPJ said.
According to CPJ’s detailed records since 1992, about two-thirds of journalists killed are specifically singled out for murder in retaliation for their work. This year, some 18 journalists were targeted directly for murder, the lowest number since 2002.
“The reason for the decline is unclear, and could be a combination of factors including less risk-taking by the media, more efforts to bring global attention to the challenge of combatting impunity, and the use of other means to silence critical journalists,” the report said.
A number of journalists have been risking their lives covering political unrest. At least three reporters died this year covering dangerous assignments, two of them in Pakistan. Mehmood Khan – a cameraman for DawnNews – and Shehzad Ahmed – a cameraman for Aaj TV – were at a hospital in Quetta where a crowd had gathered to grieve the murder of the president of the Baluchistan Bar Association when a powerful bomb killed over 70 people.
There is no tolerance in Islam for journalists who tell the truth. They report what Islamists want them to report or they are murdered. And many such deaths are hardly even investigated especially in Islamic countries and in countries run by drug lords or other oligarchs. Apparently, there is little difference.
13 countries where journalists have been killed with impunity
No comments:
Post a Comment