In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute's (IPI) ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Al­i­son Bethel McKen­zie, yes­ter­day wept as she re­count­ed the killings of 72 jour­nal­ists all over the world for the year so far. Bethel McKen­zie cried open­ly while de­liv­er­ing her re­port ti­tled The State of Press Free­dom World­wide to the in­ter­na­tion­al con­tin­gent of jour­nal­ists gath­ered at Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, for the IPI's open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of its con­gress ti­tled Me­dia in a Chal­leng­ing World: A 360 De­gree Per­spec­tive.

"To­day, I am high­ly con­cerned and deeply sad­dened. It is my un­for­tu­nate task to in­form you that this year is shap­ing up to be the worst on record for jour­nal­ist killings since the In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute be­gan keep­ing count 15 years ago," she said Bethel McKen­zie said from So­ma­lia to Syr­ia, the Philip­pines to Mex­i­co and Iraq to Pak­istan, "re­porters are be­ing bru­tal­ly tar­get­ed for death in un­par­ralelled num­bers.

"So far this year, 72 jour­nal­ists have died be­cause of their work," she said. Last year was the sec­ond worst on record with 102 jour­nal­ists killed and she de­scribed 2009 "as the grimmest ever," with 110 los­ing their lives in the field. Syr­ia has record­ed the high­est num­ber killed so far this year, where 20 jour­nal­ists and cit­i­zen re­porters (both for­eign and lo­cal) have lost their lives.

Bethel McKen­zie iden­ti­fied the Mid­dle East and North Africa as the most dan­ger­ous places for jour­nal­ists this year. These jour­nal­ists, she said, have been tar­get­ed for ha­rass­ment and crim­i­nal defama­tion law­suits. She al­so cit­ed Asia which has seen a to­tal of 22 jour­nal­ists killed for the year al­ready. Latin Amer­i­ca was iden­ti­fied as the third dead­liest re­gion in the world for jour­nal­ists, where 14 jour­nal­ists have been killed.

Mex­i­co, which, she said was the dead­liest place on earth for jour­nal­ist last year, has record­ed six jour­nal­ist killings. "All with­in the space of 50 days," she added. Bethel McKen­zie be­gan to weep as she re­called the death of a Mex­i­can fe­male jour­nal­ist in Ve­ra Cruz. In the Caribbean, she high­light­ed one jour­nal­ist killing in Haiti, but said: "Al­though much of the Caribbean was marked by a pos­i­tive free me­dia cli­mate, crim­i­nal defama­tion laws re­main on the books."

In T&T, she said me­dia con­cerns were raised by the cur­few held last year and by a raid on of­fices of a me­dia out­let. The con­tempt of court law, she said, was al­so of con­cern. The con­fer­ence which start­ed on Sat­ur­day and is be­ing held at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain ends to­mor­row. Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards de­liv­ered the open­ing ad­dress. The con­fer­ence is be­ing at­tend­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al, re­gion­al and lo­cal me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers.