A day to remember journalists killed for their work

This is something new: on Monday 3 May, the spring bank holiday in the UK, journalists in newsrooms in many parts of the world will stand for a minute's silence at 11am to honour other journalists who have died in the course of their work.

It's an initiative of UNESCO, the lead United Nations agency for issues of freedom of expression and media freedom. UNESC0's recently elected Director-General, Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, has invited people everywhere who commemorate World Press Freedom Day this year to observe the minute's silence "to remember those whom it is too late to help; to honour the journalists who paid with their lives for our right to know".

The idea grew out of the growing international concern at the mounting toll of journalist killings around the world, most of which are now regularly categorised as 'targeted assassinations'. The International News Safety Institute, INSI, says last year's death toll reached 132. Already this year, it says, 42 more journalists have been killed - and Honduras, Mexico, Pakistan, Columbia and Nigeria are currently the most dangerous countries for journalists to work in. 

Reuters' newsrooms around the world are among those planning to observe the minute's silence on 3 May. At the news agency's large London newsroom, it will instead be observed at the same time - 11am - on Tuesday 4 May, because of the UK bank holiday.

So, from now on, journalists are on a par with members of the armed services and civilians who died in wars, who are honoured with commemorations including two minutes' silence on Remembrance Day, 11 November, in Britain and many other countries. 

In 2007, BBC journalists staged regular vigils at BBC Television Centre for Alan Johnson, the Gaza correspondent who was kidnapped and held for almost four months before his release in July of that year.

And in June 2008 the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon personally unveiled the glass and steel cone sculpture entitled 'Breathing' on top of BBC Broadcasting House. It was dedicated to all news journalists, media professionals and support staff who were killed.

INSI's figures show that, in total, at least 1,000 journalists were killed between 1996 and 2006, and since then the death toll has risen even faster, with a further 500 having lost their lives.

Sobering thoughts for this World Press Freedom Day.