The Committee to Protect Journalists claims reporters have been suppressed in uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in more than 500 attacks, some of them deadly, Reuters reports.

Mohamed Abdel Dayem, program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists in the Middle East and North Africa, said the number of attacks on the media in the region since the start of the year was “unprecedented”.

Dayem adds that 14 journalists are known to have been killed worldwide this year so far and 10 of these deaths were in the Middle East and North Africa.

Yesterday it emerged that two Western photojournalists had been killed while reporting on the conflict in Libya, British-born journalist Tim Hetherington and Getty Images staff photographer Chris Hondros.