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Lynching Journalists

Lynching Journalists

Washington Post Global Opinions correspondent, Jamal Khashoggi, who is Saudi, entered his country’s consulate in Istanbul Tuesday of last week and hasn’t been seen since. Worse, Turkish officials say that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, his body dismembered, and then sneaked out of the building—lynched, you might say, and then disappeared, instead of hanged from a tree. The journalist had written articles critical of his country’s young leader, Mohammad bin Salman, the 33-year-old crown prince, who considers himself something of a liberal or at least as a reformer. How ironic that this barbarian act happened in Turkey, where in recent years more journalists have disappeared than in any other country (245 as of earlier this year, though, far as we know, none have been murdered).

Almost simultaneously with the incident in Istanbul, a 30-year-old Bulgarian journalist, Viktoria Marinova, was brutally raped and killed in Ruse, in the northeast of the country, where she was employed as a TV commentator. She had been a political investigator. Nor was she the only European journalist murdered during the past year. Daphne Caruana Galizia, similarly reporting on political issues (corruption in the government), was killed in Malta by a car bomb. And Jan Kuciak, a Slovakian journalist also working on government corruption, was shot and killed along with his fiancée.

Killing journalists has become a growth industry. In April, Jason Rezaian (another Global Opinions writer for the Washington Post, who was held captive in Iran for 544 days) described the deaths of journalists in Nicaragua, India, Brazil and Mexico during the past year. He cites President Rodrigo Duterte, of the Philippines, as saying, “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son-of-a-bitch.”

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Investigative Journalist Probing EU Corruption Found Brutally Raped And Murdered

Yet another tragic death of a high profile journalist is now raising questions. A Bulgarian journalist and TV personality who was in the midst of a deep investigation into alleged corruption involving EU funds has been found murdered in the Bulgarian town of Ruse, authorities said on Sunday.

The body of 30-year-old Viktoria Marinova was found in a local park on Saturday, and though so far police have presented the case as a tragic rape and murder unconnected with her professional work as a journalist, Bulgarian media were quick to suggest it could be linked to her EU investigations. Police said on Sunday she appeared to have been beaten, raped, and strangled to death in crime described as “exceptionally brutal”.

Major media outlets in the West, meanwhile, were quick to pick up on the suspicious nature of the timing of the heinous crime, with The Guardian noting that “The European commission and German government have urged Bulgarian authorities to bring to justice those responsible for the brutal killing of the journalist Viktoria Marinova, who had been reporting on alleged corruption in one of the EU’s newest member states.”

Viktoria Marinova worked for a Bulgarian TV station called TVN where she presented two investigative programs. Getty Images

Bulgarian Interior minister Mladen Marinov immediately tried to throw cold water on widespread speculation that she was targeted for here investigation journalism, saying there was no evidence of this: “It is about rape and murder,” he said in a statement. Marinov added that there was no evidence suggesting she had previously been threatened over her work.

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Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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