The news and, more so, the video of the beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic extremists shocked the world. Truth be told, these barbaric fundamentalists who do not deserve to be called Muslims or even humans, have been committing similar atrocities day in day out.
They are just a bunch of barbarians that try to hide their vileness under the guise of a religious belief. There is no god who condones the massacre of so many people in his name.
Christians are being persecuted, enslaved, raped and killed daily in the infernal caliphate set up in Iraq. The Yazidis have been particularly targeted because of their beliefs. Even other Muslims are not escaping the savagery of the Islamic state.
However, there is something in the murder of a journalist which brings with it a burst of negative publicity more than happens when an ‘ordinary’ person is murdered. One of the reasons, quite naturally, is that the media do take care of their own. The media give a lot of publicity when a journalist is murdered.
"The barbaric murder of journalist James Foley, kidnapped in Syria and held almost two years, sickens all decent people. Foley went to Syria to show the plight of the Syrian people, to bear witness to their fight, and in so doing to fight for press freedom," said Committee to Protect Journalists Chairman Sandra Mims Rowe. "Our hearts go out to his family, who had dedicated themselves to finding and freeing Jim."
Another reason is that journalists are to a certain extent the extension of their audiences. They provide audiences everywhere with their eyes, ears and mouths. Whenever a journalist is murdered, and so brutally to boot, the rest of us feel that they have almost been amputated as now they see and follow less.
The life of another journalist is in the balance. The murderers have him in their clutches and threaten to kill him if the United States of America reacts.
Foley is not the first journalist to be killed while serving the public through his profession. The CPJ says that at least 69 other journalists have been killed covering the conflict in Syria, including some who died over the border in Lebanon and Turkey.
More than 80 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria; with frequent abductions, some of which go unpublicized, it is difficult to know exactly how many. CPJ estimates that approximately 20 journalists, both local and international, are currently missing in Syria. Many of them are believed to be held by Islamic State.
Over a longer period of time a frightening picture emerges. Over 1000 journalists had been killed since 1992; sad, very sad indeed.