A fatal job. How many journalists have to die?

On April 27 the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reported another brutal murder: journalist José Everardo Aguilar was killed when he answered the door of his home in the south western town of Patia, 450km south of the capital Bogotá, Colombia. He was 72 and the father of ten.

According to the director of Radio Súper Popayán, an unknown man came to his house and said he wanted to show him some documents and photographs. When José Everardo Aguilar asked to see them, the man drew a gun and shot him six times at close range. He died on the spot and the killer walked away and escaped.

"This is the gravest in a series of attacks against colleagues all around the country," Eduardo Márquez, president of the Federation of Colombian Journalists (FECOLPER) said. "Since the beginning of the year 2009, we have now registered 40 attacks against journalists in Colombia."

Appalling though these details and statistics are, such killings and attacks still have not yet punctured the public conscience. The general public is not yet stung into action and until it is, politicians are not likely to do much.

As IFJ General Secretary Aidan White says in its 2008 annual report, "We often see politicians, even in democratic countries, showing callous indifference to the threats posed by attacks on journalists and media”.

In London in June 2008, the United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon unveiled a 10m glass and steel cone on top of BBC Broadcasting House to shine a beam of light into the sky every night at 2200 GTM.

The memorial is dedicated to all news journalists and those who have worked with them, including drivers and translators. At that time it was estimated that in the past 10 years an estimated two war reporters a week had died, with many more killed while covering tales of corruption.

Mr Ban said the light memorial stood "in tribute to all those who have sacrificed their lives so that the rest of us could be informed … But it is also for those who survive, those who are out there right now - risking their lives to report what they uncover in the face of deadly threats."

Rodney Pinder, director of the International News Safety Institute (INSI) which works for more safety for journalists, added: "These men and women are the unsung heroes of democracy, for without a free press there can be no freedom. This shaft of light in the capital of international journalism is a visual reminder of their sacrifice."

As the sculpture, “Breathing”, by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, lit up for the first time none present could have have guessed how many more journalists were soon to die, nor how blatant some of those murders would be.

Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of Sri Lanka’s The Sunday Leader, knew he would be assassinated. Before he was killed on January 8, 2009, he wrote a last editorial, posthumously published in his own paper on January 22.

He wrote: