The Road to Justice
2. Measuring Progress Against Stubborn Reality In November 2013, the United Nations General Assembly put the issue of impunity squarely on the global agenda. The Resolution on Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, adopted by consensus, describes the absence of justice for victims as “one of the main challenges to strengthening the protection…
The Road to Justice
3. Where Impunity Thrives A climate of impunity reached a tragic culmination on November 23, 2009, when gunmen ambushed a caravan escorting political candidate Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu as he prepared to file papers to become a candidate for provincial governor in the Philippines. The attackers slaughtered 58 people, among them 30 journalists and two media…
The Road to Justice
4. Steps That Work and Those That Don’t On May 3, 2011, CPJ representatives traveled to Pakistan to raise concerns about the increasing attacks against journalists there and the country’s high rate of impunity. It was a moment of drama: The previous day, American forces had killed Osama bin Laden in nearby Abbottabad. But Pakistani…
The Road to Justice
5. Building Pressure, Enforcing Compliance The United Nations has escalated its focus on journalist killings, declaring that unpunished attacks against journalists are a major threat not only to press freedom, but also to all major areas of the U.N.’s work. In recent years, it has adopted two resolutions addressing journalists’ safety and impunity and launched…
The Road to Justice
Conclusion Today the fight against impunity has reached an important juncture. There is awareness on domestic and global levels of the extreme peril posed to journalists and the public’s right to information when violence against the press is met with official inaction. The cries for justice by freedom of expression advocates have been amplified by…
The Road to Justice
Appendix I At least 370 journalists have been murdered in direct connection to their work from the beginning of 2004 through 2013, according to CPJ research. In 333 of the cases, no one has been convicted. In 28 cases, some suspects have been sentenced, or killed in the course of apprehension, but others believed to…
When it comes to the right to report, journalists must stand together
Pakistani journalists I have met over the years know that while I might be an American, I have never been an apologist for the U.S. government. The goal of the Committee to Protect Journalists is to assist members of the press no matter where they are, and if we have to criticize their governments, well…
Responsibility to end impunity rests with UN member states
Today marked an important step in efforts to protect journalists, with the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva unanimously adopting a new resolution on the safety of journalists. Resolution 27/L7 reiterates, and strengthens the 2012 resolution (A/HRC/RES/21/12) agreed on by the same body.
Back-to-back display killings of journalists unprecedented
The apparent back-to-back murders of two American freelance journalists by the same group are unprecedented in CPJ’s history. The beheadings on camera in a two-week period of first James Foley and then Steven Sotloff appear to be an acceleration of a pattern–dating at least to Daniel Pearl’s killing in 2002–of criminal and insurgent groups displaying…
An Afghan conviction, but little sense of victory
Naqibullah, the Afghan police commander who killed The Associated Press’ Anja Niedringhaus, has been given a death sentence after being convicted of murder and treason. He was also given a four- year sentence for shooting the AP’s Kathy Gannon. Naqibullah (who goes by one name, as many Afghans do) opened fire at near-point-blank range on…