WASHINGTON -- At least 26 reporters and editors have been systematically killed in the last 2 1/2 years in Tajikistan, making it the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, a media watchdog group said Wednesday.


"In Tajikistan, almost all of the murders of journalists have been carried out by groups closely linked to the current government, which is maintained in power by Russian military and economic support," the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report.


The repression of journalists in Tajikistan is disturbing also in light of upcoming presidential elections, originally scheduled for September, then postponed until Nov. 6, the committee said.


"Holding free and fair elections without an independent media is not possible," the group wrote.


Lakim Kayumov, Tajikistan's representative to the United Nations, could not be reached for comment on the report. He was not in his office Wednesday, said a person answering the telephone.


Tajikistan has been racked by political and economic upheaval since its independence from the Soviet Union. Some 25,000 Russian troops are in the country, fighting anti-government rebels along the 1,064-kilometer border with Afghanistan. Tajikistan and Russia signed a treaty on cooperation in 1993, providing for military, economic and cultural cooperation.


The committee sent two representatives to Tajikistan in June to investigate reports that journalists were being killed for attempting to do their work. Leonid Zagalsky, the group's coordinator for the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and William Orme, the group's executive director, met with journalists and government officials. Through contacts developed during the trip, Zagalsky was later able to piece together a list of the 26 journalists killed in Tajikistan since 1992.


The committee outlined what it called a "ruthless campaign" by the government against independent media in Tajikistan, which has led to the closure of all magazines and newspapers sympathetic to the opposition. More than 100 journalists from Tajikistan have fled and are now living in Russia, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, the group said.


Four journalists from Tajikistan's state television are currently jailed in the capital of Dushanbe, awaiting trial on charges of treason, according to the report. They face a possible death penalty.


In sheer numbers, the killings of journalists in Tajikistan rival the worst cases documented in Central America and Argentina in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to the report. Only Algeria and former Yugoslavia have seen comparable numbers of journalists killed since 1992. In Algeria, however, most of the killings were the work of anti-government Moslem fundamentalists, the group said. And most of the journalists killed in former Yugoslavia were caught in cross-fire or shot by snipers.


The committee urged rejection of the government's claim that the election scheduled for Nov. 6 will be legitimate, and demanded investigation of journalists' deaths. It also said all international and Western aid agencies should evaluate Tajikistan's record on human rights and press freedom when granting non-humanitarian economic assistance.