Sierra Leone and Somalia among dangerous places for media: watchdog

MANILA (Reuters) - Escalating violence in South Asia has been putting more journalists at risk, a New York-based media watchdog said on Monday, although the most dangerous places for the profession remained Iraq, Sierra Leone and Somalia.

Those three nations, all in a state of war, have the worst records for failing to solve murders of journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said.

About 523 journalists have been killed across the world since 1998 in an "impunity index" compiled by the CPJ, listing at least 14 states with high numbers of unsolved journalist murder cases against the size of the population.

"The political situation in South Asia is deteriorating," Shawn Crispin, CPJ Asia programme consultant, told Reuters after the group announced its second "impunity index".

"These countries are entering now into eras of sustained armed conflict and as soon as that happens, journalists are immediately at risk."

Crispin said some journalists in Sri Lanka, for example, were being directly targeted by the state, while those in Pakistan were getting caught between opposing political forces.

There were nine unsolved murder cases involving journalists in Sri Lanka in the 10-year period, putting it at number four behind Iraq, Sierra Leone and Somalia. Pakistan has 10 cases of unsolved journalist killings and is ranked 10th in the index.

"The situation in Pakistan is quickly eroding," said Crispin, a former foreign correspondent based in Southeast Asia.

"There are more and more journalists getting caught, not necessarily in the crossfire itself, but by competing groups. They don't like the coverage of the journalist, they target the journalist."