Yves Debay, a French journalist reporting for the magazine Assaut, was shot by a sniper in Aleppo on 17 January. Mohamed Al-Messalma, a Syrian journalist also known as Mohamed Al-Horani, was killed the next day while covering fighting in Bousra Al-Harir, a suburb of the southern city of Deraa. He worked for Al-Jazeera.

Reporters Without Borders reiterates its concern about the deteriorating security conditions for reporters in Syria. “Journalists are being targeted with increasing frequency and the rate of deliberate killings is accelerating dangerously,” the media freedom organization said.

Debay was a former soldier who created two magazines specialized in military matters, Raids in 1986 and Assaut in 2005.

Al-Jazeera said Al-Horani was killed by a regular army sniper. Aged 33, he had worked for the Qatar-based TV news channel for more than a year. He had previously been an anti-government activist.

According to the Reporters Without Borders tally, at least 21 journalists and 49 citizen-journalists have been killed in connection with their reporting in Syria since the start of the uprising and the ensuing crackdown in March 2011.

Reporters Without Borders is also concerned about Mosaab Al-Hamadi, the Syria correspondent of Al-Arabiyya, Sky News Arabic and other TV stations, who is being held by an opposition group.

“I am horrified by the sudden upsurge of violence targeting the media in Somalia,” said the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, adding that the killings are an outrage against the whole nation.

“They are also an extreme violation of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press – both essential for the construction and functioning of healthy democracies, and especially important in a nation trying to rebuild after so many years of conflict,” she added.

The journalists were killed in three separate attacks occurring on 16, 20 and 21 September.

On Friday, Hassan Youssouf Absuge, a well-known radio journalist, was shot dead as he left the studios of Radio Mantaa, and independent station for which he was the programme director.

On Thursday, three journalists – Liban Ali Nur, head of news at Somali National TV, Abdisatar Daher Sabriye, head of news at Radio Mogadishu, and Abdirahman Yasin Ali, director of Radio Hamar (Voice of Democracy) – were killed and four others injured in a double suicide-bombing at a popular restaurant frequented by journalists in Mogadishu, the capital.

Four days earlier, Zakariye Mohamed Mohamud Moallim, who worked as an independent cameraman, was shot dead in the Nasib Bundo neighbourhood of Mogadishu.

“I urge the Somali authorities to do everything in their power to bring the perpetrators of these outrageous crimes to justice,” Ms. Bokova said.

These latest killings bring to 13 the number of journalists killed in Somalia this year and 26 the number killed since 2008, UNESCO said in a news release.

The bombing came just two days after a rebel attack on the state TV building in the northwestern city of Aleppo and a month after an explosion caused severe damage to the headquarters of the pro-government TV station Al-Ekhbarya.

“We condemn these targeted attacks on state TV buildings in Damascus and Aleppo as well as murders and abductions of journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Neither news media, professional journalists nor citizen journalists should be targeted by any of the parties to this conflict.

“We urge the main components of the opposition, both civilian and military, to condemn these atrocities. We also strongly condemn the publication and broadcasting of messages inciting hatred and violence against the civilian population. The media must not relay propaganda of any kind.”

According to the London-based Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre, Mohammad Sayeed, the state TV presenter who was kidnapped from his Damascus home on 19 July, has been killed.

His abduction and murder were clamed by Al-Nosra, an Islamist group, which described Sayeed as a pro-government militia member (shabbih) and said he was interrogated and then executed. The Al-Nosra communiqué, accompanied by a photo of Sayeed with his abductors, was posted on a website that displays an Al-Qaeda flag.

State TV chief Maan Saleh has not confirmed Sayeed’s death. “We have no hard evidence that he is dead,” Saleh told Agence France-Presse. The rebel Free Syrian Army has meanwhile denied having anything to do with his abduction and murder.

Talal Janbakeli, a state TV cameraman, was meanwhile kidnapped by the Harun Al-Rasheed militia yesterday in Damascus. In a video released by his abductors, he could be seen in an abnormal state repeating phrases dictated by a person out of camera view about the Syrian army’s atrocities.

State TV reporter Kareem Shibani was shot and wounded in the back while covering clashes in the Damascus neighbourhood of Tadamun on 4 August.

The Syria-News website has reported that the journalist Ahmed Thabet Mohssen has been missing since 1 August. Family sources said they thought he was arrested with a friend at an army checkpoint at Qorra al-Assad, near Damascus.

Finally, France 24 reporter Chady Chlela had to leave Syria on 29 July, just 48 hours after arrived because messages threatening him were circulating on social media. They described him as a Shiite agent in the Syrian government’s pay and said he should be prevented from working with the rebels. On this return to Paris, he filed a complaint about “death threats” with the prosecutor’s office.

Till now, the Arab states were heavily involved in the economic prosperity of many Arab news organizations. They were able to apply pressure in several ways, most notably through ownership or advertising. An example is Al-Jazeera, which was funded by the Qatar’s royal family, and which avoids any broadcasts critical of Qatar’s royals. A similar example can be found in Egypt, where the Al-Ahram newspaper is the country’s strongest paper in circulation, and was owned by President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

In the Middle East, pressure on the media is exercised also via the purchase of advertisement, but to a more significant degree than in the West. If not following the directives of the government, publications can suddenly find themselves without their largest client, and be effectively put out of business. An example comes from the United Arab Emirates, where major newspapers might not be owned outright by the regime, but receive heavy government subsidies, and need to honour such generosity, demonstrating respect of it.

The result of this situation isn’t simple at all. As Noam Chomsky states in Manufacturing Consent, “censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.” If this stands, the Arab countries need a period of transition from the present state to more democratic regimes; only then journalists will feel free to properly investigate on topics now felt untouchable.

There is hope for this. Nowadays, a mechanism of great impact has been put into motion in the Middle East; in spite of every possible pressure, citizen-reporters send out bits of what is investigative journalism in its most embryonic form. As a result, the mainstream media try to reinvent themselves, because they cannot ignore the value of these forms of news coverage.

As expected, the space in which Arabs reporters seem to be more comfortable to post information as they please is the cyber space. In Egypt this has become a well-known form of factual narrative output, and the government has been watching it for a long time. As a result, bloggers have been arrested, detained, interrogated; their activity in reporting rallies, politics as commented upon on the road, and the actions of the labour movement in Egypt, has become a thorn in the side of the old regime.

Egyptian journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy stated in a video interview, taken by WorldFocus  in 2008, that his career as a journalism-blogger was built by writing about the factual, standing with one foot in cyberspace and the other on the road. Unfortunately, this kind of career in Egypt involved a routine of arrests, questioning and torture. Today, el-Hamalawy is recognized as a prominent journalist, activist and blogger. However, this does not signify a change of major relevance in the way journalists are perceived in his country. As he reports in the article for The Guardian, ‘In Egypt, Mubarak’s repression machine is still alive and well’ (16 May 2012), a mechanism of censorship continues to function in his country.

Another Egyptian journalist, Nora Younis, whose career was launched by her courage as a prominent blogger using new media tools – for which she was awarded the Human Rights First Award in New York (2008) – joined AlMasry AlYoum in the same year. She is currently the head of a qualified multimedia desk team, which works closely with reporters, photographers and caricaturists to bring news to her people in the most informative way. She is monitoring the state of investigative journalism and oversees citizen journalism pages as well, in the understanding that much has to be done to obtain freedom for the media.

The question remains: how long will take to the Arab world to give life to independent investigative journalism? And which shape will it take in the near future?

The matter is pressing, especially as Arab governments continue to control the media through licensing, or not, the right to record events, take pictures, and enter archives. What is more, Arab journalists must often obtain government permits to work, losing them if they get too pushy; and deal with the Arab media charters, introduced in 2008, which consolidated Arab states’ grip on information.

Watching the Arab fight for media freedom gives a great sense of hope to the many Arabs living in Greece. Their vision for a democratic Middle East is mesmerizing, and much can come from it. Hopefully, it will also bring some great pieces of investigative journalism, written by courageous and determined Arab journalists.

“The number of journalists who are paying with their lives for doing their job in Pakistan is alarming,” the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said in a news release.

Abdul Razaq Gul, a journalist for Express News TV based in Balochistan province, was found dead on 19 May, according to UNESCO. He had been kidnapped while returning home the previous evening, and his body showed signs of torture.

Aurengzeb Tunio was a television reporter for the Sindhi-language Kawaish Television Network in Lalu Ranwak village in Sindh province. Some 20 gunmen are reported to have attacked his office, killing him, his brother and a family friend.

“I urge the authorities to investigate these killings. It is essential for freedom of expression and for good governance that those responsible for the death of journalists be brought to justice,” Ms. Bokova added.

The latest killings bring to 27 the number of journalists and media workers killed in Pakistan since 2002, according to UNESCO.