Kommersant reminds its readers that Russia is now the second most dangerous country in the world for the practice of journalism:

Russia has the second position in the world in the number of journalists killed in the last ten years while doing their job, according to the report of the International News Safety Institute (INSI). The first place is given to Iraq, where war was going on quite recently. Russian journalists mainly become victims of contract murders, says the report.

INSI’s report claims that nearly 1,000 journalists died in the world between January 1996 and June 2006. Only one quarter of them died during wars and military actions. Iraq became the most dangerous country for mass media workers, killing 138 of them.

Russia is the second most dangerous, with 88 killed journalists. Columbia is the third. The list includes Iran, Pakistan, Ukraine, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Guatemala.

INSI called on the governments of those countries not to “allow murders and other forms of violence, and guarantee that the criminals do not go off unpunished”.

According to the report, most journalists in Russia suffered for their articles on corruption, human rights violations, and other “unlawful acts”. The most common cause of journalists’ deaths in Russia is contract murders, according to INSI.