Maria Salazar-Ferro/Coordinator, Impunity Campaign & Journalist Assistance Program
Maria Salazar Ferro is director of CPJ’s Emergencies Department, overseeing the organization’s assistance and safety work worldwide. She is president of the board of the ACOS (A Culture of Safety) Alliance, a coalition aimed at improving protections for freelancers. She joined CPJ in 2005 and has served as coordinator for the Journalist Assistance Program and the Global Campaign Against Impunity, and as senior research associate for the Americas program.
In the wake of US pullout, Afghan journalists need protection
In the aftermath of this week’s foreign policy speech by President Barack Obama and discussions on the imminent pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, we need to think once again of the implications this retreat will have for the thousands of Afghans who for more than a decade have worked not only with the military,…
Journalists still murdered where impunity reigns
Almost half of the 67 journalists killed worldwide in 2012 were targeted and murdered for their work, research by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows. The vast majority covered politics. Many also reported on war, human rights, and crime. In almost half of these cases, political groups are the suspected source of fire. There has…
On Human Rights Day, make your voice heard on impunity
In 1950, the United Nations General Assembly declared December 10 Human Rights Day in commemoration of the adoption and proclamation two years earlier of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Every year, on this day, the U.N. chooses one right to highlight and advocate. This year, Human Rights Day is focused on the right of…
Speak Justice campaign fights impunity in press murders
The tortured and decapitated body of 39-year-old María Elizabeth Macías Castro was found on a Saturday evening in September 2011. It had been dumped by the side of a road in Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican border town ravaged by the war on drugs. Macías, a freelance journalist, wrote about organized crime on social media under…
To fight impunity, cycle of fear, silence must be broken
Three years ago, on November 23, 2009, 30 journalists and two media workers were brutally killed in the southern Philippine city of Maguindanao while travelling in a convoy with the family and supporters of a local politician. To this day, not a single suspect has been convicted, though local authorities have identified close to 200.…
What we have learned from fighting impunity
Press freedom groups worldwide are banding together today, the International Day to End Impunity, to demand justice for hundreds of journalists murdered for their work. On this day, the Committee to Protect Journalists and dozens of other members of the International Freedom of Information Exchange are remembering journalists killed, and urging governments to take action…
A call to continue the struggle against impunity
Last night, hundreds of journalists and members of New York’s press freedom community met at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan for the Committee to Protect Journalists’ XXI annual International Press Freedom Awards. At the event–celebrating the extraordinary courage of five journalists from across the globe–guests and award recipients unanimously expressed their commitment to fighting…
November 23 becomes International Day to End Impunity
Members from around the world of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange met in Beirut last week. On the second day of our conference, amid discussions of the daily problems journalists face, we received word of the abduction and murder of Pakistani investigative journalist Saleem Shahzad. A day later, the conference buzzed with news of…
An appeal to help the family of a disappeared journalist
Sri Lankan cartoonist and political reporter Prageeth Eknelygoda disappeared almost one year ago today. He was last seen leaving the Colombo offices of the political Website Lanka eNews, where he worked, late on the evening of Sunday, January 24, 2010. No one has heard from Eknelygoda since.
From grief of Maguindanao, a ‘family’ emerges
Today marks nine months since the Maguindanao massacre, the deadliest event for the press that CPJ has ever recorded. On November 23, 2009, at 10 a.m., a convoy traveling to the provincial capital of Shariff Aquak to file gubernatorial candidacy papers stopped at what appeared to be a routine military checkpoint. Hours later, authorities would…