On Wednesday, April 20, the Associated Press confirmed that Tim Hetherington, co-director of the Oscar-nominated Restrepo as well as the Pulitzer prize nominated photographer Chris Hondros had been killed in the city of Misrata, Libya. The two men, alongside two other photographers, came under fire in the besieged city and were brought in by rebels after being struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Mr Hondros had, according to the New York Times, suffered “an extensive loss of brain tissue and was revived twice before being triaged from care. He spent several hours in a coma and died after 10 p.m.” Mr Hetherington had upon arrival to the triage centre already lost large amounts of blood and doctors were unable to stabilize him, a source told the New York Times. He died soon after.

Of the other two men wounded, Guy Martin, a British photographer, suffered a severe pelvic wound and underwent surgery during the night where doctors managed to stop the bleeding. The fourth member of the group, Michael Christopher Brown, suffered wounds to the shoulder but nothing life threatening.

Misrata is the third-largest city in Libya and has been the battleground of intense fighting for weeks. Hundreds of Libyans have been confirmed killed, according to the New York Times report. On the day of the attack, Hetherington tweeted “In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO.” Hetherington have been working in similar, dangerous environment while covering political conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. His collaboration with Sebastian Junger on the documentary Restrepo brought the British national international acclaim when it was nominated at this years Academy Awards.

However, covering the fighting in Libya has proven itself extremely difficult as journalists are subjected to heavy fire from multiple sources and face the risk of “arrest, beatings and detention from the pro-Qaddafi forces.” Just last month, two other journalists were killed in the Libyan conflict; Mohammad al-Nabbous, founder of the online Libya Al-Hurra TV, was killed by an unknown gunman and Ali Hassan al-Jaber, a cameraman for Al-Jazeera, was shot during an ambush on his crew.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization promoting global press freedom, have documented more than 80 attacks on the press in Libya since February. “Our hearts go out to family, friends, and colleagues of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, whose work in some of the world’s most dangerous places has had a profound impact on how we understand and perceive war,” said Joel Simon, CPJ executive director. “Their deaths are another illustration of war’s cruelty and a reminder of how devastatingly difficult coverage of the Libyan conflict has become.”

Human Rights Watch, who’s staff knew the photographers, arranged shortly after the confirmation of the deaths to have the bodies evacuated to Benghazi with the Ionian Spirit, a vessel chartered by the International Organization for Migration. According to the New York Times, officials from England and the US have begun preparing for the remains of Mr Hetherington and Mr Hondros to be repatriated from Libya after the voyage.

At Toonari Post, our thoughts are with the family and friends of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros.

Photo Credit: Michael von Bergen – a swiss independent photojournalist currently based out of Bogota. Please visit: http://www.flickr.com/people/vonbergendotnet/

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In an article for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-posten, freelance journalist Pola Rojan took a look at the state of press freedom in Turkey, the country at EU’s border which has tried to gain full membership of the Union since 1987. What he found was a country who had started to take the rights of journalists increasingly less serious in what seems to be a deliberate attempt from the government to stifle freedom of speech.

Mid-February, the newly appointed American ambassador to Turkey, Francis Ricciardone, expressed concern over the increased number of cases against journalists and his statement received immediate support from the Foreign Ministry in Washington. At the same time, several international investigations have pointed out the exact same development in the Turkish state. At the start of February, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) concluded in their yearly report that the situation for journalists in Turkey was a great cause of concern. The organization refers to the around 4.000 journalists who are currently on trail at the Turkish court, hundreds of them already serving prison sentences.

The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, responded to Mr Ricciardone’s statement with anger, saying that the subject was none of the American’s business and called him an ‘amateur ambassador’. The Minister of the Interior, Beshir Atalay followed up by remarking that press freedom was probably better off in Turkey than in the US. This attitude is a sharp contrast to the current situation for many journalists on the ground – a situation which international observes believe can be attributed to the conservative Justice and Development party (AK Party) and their eight year period as the ruling party. Reporters Without Borders release a yearly report on the global conditions of freedom of press and in this period, Turkey took a dive in the organizations country index. From having been placed at number 99 for a stable period until 2002, Turkey had fallen to number 138 out of 178 countries in 2010. The EU commission assigned to oversee the Turkish reform process have been highly critical of this development, stating that the country’s legislation have failed to guarantee the freedom of press in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the problem is mainly the anti-terror law from which many journalist are prosecuted for propaganda activities. The legislation judges the word as harsh as the sword – meaning that producing material considered to represent a terrorist organization is just as criminal as picking up a weapon and fighting for its cause. Spokeswoman for HRW in Turkey calls the law a political instrument and cites its unspecified language as a major reason for the law’s misuse.

Irfan Aktan, a 30-year-old journalist, is currently serving a 15 months prison sentence, convicted of terrorist propaganda after interviewing two armed militants from the Kurdish resistance movement PKK. He has appealed the conviction but has joined the cabinet of ‘unwanted’ journalist which include more controversial cases such as Verdat Kursun, chief editor of Azadiya Welat who was sentenced to 166 years in prison for “spreading propaganda for an illegal organization” – meaning the PKK. To Jyllands-posten, Mr Aktan explains “I have passed on other people’s opinion to a newspaper audience. It is the most fundamental journalistic discipline for which I am now being punished.”

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