ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The journalistic watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its annual report on Wednesday, positioning Iraq as the country with the third highest number of missing journalists in the world amid an overall unfavorable situation in the country for press freedom.

The NGO noted that 12 journalists are currently unaccounted for in the country, marking the third highest figure in the world behind Syria and Mexico with 37 and 28 respectively.

The annual round-up, which covered the period between December 1, 2024 and December 1, 2025, found that 67 journalists have been killed worldwide in that timeframe, with over 500 remaining imprisoned for their media activities.

"This is where impunity for these crimes leads us: the failure of international organizations that are no longer able to ensure journalists’ right to protection in armed conflicts is the consequence of a global decline in the courage of governments, which should be implementing protective public policies," said Thibaut Bruttin, RSF Director General.

"Discrediting the media breeds the worst kind of behavior, and sometimes results in an intolerable licence to kill," he continued. "It is our responsibility to stand alongside those who uphold our collective right to reliable information. We owe them that."

In its 2024 report, RSF ranked Iraq 169th worldwide in terms of press freedom, marking a two-rank drop from the previous year’s 167th ranking. The country roses slightly to 155th in the 2025 rankings.

"Many journalists have been killed by armed groups in recent years, by both Jihadist organisations and militias. Such killings rarely lead to investigations and those responsible go unpunished," the NGO's Iraq summary asserted.

"Death threats and abduction are also often used to terrorise and silence journalists. Influential, high-profile journalists used to be the main targets of this form of intimidation but nowadays it is also used against lesser-known journalists."

Since 2003, 475 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq, with perpetrators held accountable in only two or three cases, according to the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (IOHR).

Not just Iraq: A general trend in the Middle East

​​Worldwide, 503 journalists were being held in prisons across 47 different countries. China keeps being the world’s most prolific jailer of the press, with 121 reporters currently imprisoned, followed by Russia with 48 and Myanmar with 47. Under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, Russia has also become the leading detainer of foreign journalists, holding 26, while Israel follows with 20.

Israel now ranks second worldwide in the number of foreign journalists it imprisons.

As of 1 December 2025, 20 Palestinian reporters are being held in Israeli jails, 16 of them arrested over the past two years in Gaza and the West Bank. At the same time, Israeli forces are responsible for more than 43 percent of all attacks on media workers documented this year. Since October 2023, Israeli military operations have killed roughly 220 journalists, with at least 65 of them targeted because of their work or killed while they were reporting.

As of today, 135 journalists are missing in 37 countries, with some cases stretching back more than 30 years. Syria is the worst-affected country, accounting for 37 of those missing.

There, reporters were often abducted by ISIS or detained by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Yet even after both of these powers fell, the fate of many of those journalists remains unknown. In Syria, dozens who were detained or disappeared before Assad’s overthrow in December 2024 are still unaccounted for. After the fall of the regime, factions of the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) moved into the resulting power vacuum, and the group is now holding several journalists hostage.

Yemen emerged as the main hotspot for the kidnapping of journalists in 2025, with seven media workers taken hostage over the course of the year. The Houthis were responsible for all seven abductions, making Yemen the country with the highest number of journalists targeted in this way over the past twelve months.

In Sudan, the ongoing conflict has exposed journalists to severe abuses: four reporters were killed in the line of duty this year, and at least two of them died after being abducted by the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces.