When a bomb exploded outside Yelena Tregubova's Moscow apartment in 2004, police said it was an act of hooliganism - nothing to do with her reporting.

In Turkmenistan, there is silence surrounding the death of Ogulsapar Muradova, a radio reporter arrested in June 2006. Branded a traitor by Turkmenistan's president, she was imprisoned for more than two months and wasn't allowed contact with anyone. Then she was put on trial. It lasted all of a few minutes. She was sentenced to six years in prison, and three weeks later she was dead. Authorities refused to say what happened when they handed her body to her family on September 14. They would not allow an autopsy or an investigation. Silence.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, many Western reporters now travel with Kevlar vests and private security guards, or they embed with U.S. and British militaries. Few local journalists, however, have such protections. Afghan reporters face threats from Taliban insurgents, al-Qaeda operatives, warlords, corrupt officials, drug traffickers, nervous soldiers, and security services. All too often, their sacrifices go unnoticed.

In Pakistan, especially in the tribal areas along the Afghan border, journalists are under constant threat. While Pakistani authorities made arrests in the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, investigators have produced nothing in the slayings of seven journalists.

Iraq, of course, remains the most dangerous place for journalists, but there are many countries where editors and writers, correspondents and photographers risk their lives daily to report the truth. In Ethiopia, more than 20 journalists are in jail. Only China and Cuba imprison more members of the press.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, massive corruption and a complete lack of judicial protection allow gunmen to operate with impunity. Tens of thousands of women have been raped, and rarely are the attackers arrested. Journalists are killed or threatened, and there is no investigation, no justice. Silence.

It would be easy to pretend that all these attacks on journalists do not have an impact, do not stop reporters from pursuing important stories. But, of course, they do.

In the former Soviet Union, that attacks on the press have a "chilling effect on media coverage of the sensitive issues of corruption, organized crime, human rights violations, and abuse of power."

In countries around the world, the chilling effect is the same. It will interest you to note that this worldwide survey made by the Committee to Protect Journalists also reveals that the Philippines ranks fifth in the number of journalists killed from 1992 to 2006. We ranked behind Iraq, Algeria, Russia and Colombia.

It will also interest you to know that broadcast reporters occupy the second place in the number of media people murdered. The most number of media practitioners who lost their lives were the print reporters and writers.

In the local front, statistics tell us that since 2003, 33 of our journalists have been killed in the line of duty -- 29 of them were exposing corrupt government practices in their home provinces or illegal activities such as drug trafficking and gambling. It is chilling to think that the lives of so many brave souls have been reduced to mere statistics. It is even more painful to know that only one of these cases has seen a court's conviction.

In October 2006, the assassins of Marlene Esperat, an investigative journalist killed in May 2005, were sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge Eric F. Menchavez of Branch 21 of the Regional Trial Court of Cebu City. Still, this lone conviction hardly counts as a significant victory, as a great majority of the other cases remain unsolved, the killers still stalking this land of vitriol and violence.

The problem of extralegal killings and enforced disappearances has become endemic and remains one of the gravest threats to our democratic society (Rachel E. Khan, "The Deadly Journalist's Task of Exposing Corruption," Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (2007). It is a deplorable reality that mocks the Rule of Law, for it nullifies the mother of all human rights -- the right to life, which no man can dilute without due process of law. (To be continued next Wednesday)

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