Iranian journalist martyred in Aleppo

According to the UNESCO report over 827 journalists have been killed during the past 10 years. The countries with the highest mortality rate for journalists and reporters have been Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya.

IRIB journalist in Syria Mohsen Khazaei was martyred while reporting in the embattled city of Aleppo. IRIB reporting team along with other media groups was present in Aleppo to cover news of the battlefield and advance of brave combatants in western Aleppo when they were attacked by terrorist mortar shell. Mohsen Khazaei attained martyrdom when shrapnel from a mortar shell hit him in the head whereas the IRIB cameraman was injured on the shoulder and was transferred to hospital. 

Martyr Khazaei was born in 1972 and started his activity in 1995 in IRIB. His work reached its peak when the Takfiri grouplets began their activities in southeastern Iran and he revealed their evil intensions by producing enlightening programs and reports. Having passed the exams of the Young Journalists Club of Zahedan in Sistan Baluchistan province, he continued working in some other Iranian cities. After years of working as a professional news reporter, his enthusiasm for defending the holy shrine of Hazrat Zainab (SA) attracted him to Syria till he was martyred on November 12.  

Many political, military and cultural figures of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued messages of condolence on the martyrdom of Mohsen Khazaei. The IRIB president, in his message, expressed his grief, sympathy and condolence to Khazaei’s family and his colleagues and described him as an honest narrator of the oppressed people of Syria and Aleppo vis-à-vis Arrogance, terrorism, Takfiris and disbelief. Prior to this, the Iranian journalist and documentary filmmaker Hadi Baghbani had attained martyrdom by the terrorist An-Nusra front in August 2013 in the suburb of Damascus.

The latest UNESCO reporter shows that every four and a half days one correspondent is killed in the world. The UNESCO shocking report indicates that over the past 10 years more than 827 reporters have been killed on duty. After the Arab countries, Latin America ranked second in terms of reporter casualties.

The highest death toll of reporters occurred belonged to 2013- 2015. In this period, 78 of the 213 killed correspondents lost their lives in Arab countries. The most warning message of the report is growth of casualties in West Europe and North America from 9 in 2014 to 11 in 2015.

The report adds that in those countries native journalists have been subject to more danger than foreigners and they have comprised 90 percent of victims. Of course the figures related to casualties of foreign reporters have also risen and been over 17 in 2014. In the previous years, the figure stood at 4 persons in average. The death toll of male reporters has been 10 times more than the female ones. In the past two years, 195 male reporters and 18 female ones have been killed.

Another report indicates that in 2014 and 2015 concurrent with Daesh control of some regions including Mosul, 34 journalists were killed or injured in Iraq. According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), during this period 48 cases of kidnapping reporters were registered mostly in Mosul. According to the Committee of Support for Reporters, 29% of the correspondents who were killed were detained before death while 41% were threatened and 7% were tortured in one way or another.

According to the Committee of Support for Reporters in New York, out of the 69 killed reporters in 2015, 28 had received threatening message before being killed. Most of these journalists pursued highly critical and risky subjects and some of them worked at the warfronts.

Although the number of the journalists killed in 2015 has been less than the previous years, Syria with 13 victims ranked first.

FK/RM/SS