Impunity

Foreword: Journalism as well as journalists in danger from failure to stand up for India’s press

P. Sainath

This report by the Committee to Protect Journalists does more than tell us that reporting in India can be a dangerous business. Rural and small-town journalists are at greater risk of being killed in retaliation for their work than those in the big cities but, as this report shows, factors such as a journalist’s location, outlet, level in the profession’s hierarchy, and social background add to that risk. The language a reporter writes in and, most importantly, what they are writing about—especially if it challenges the powerful—increase the vulnerability.

Impunity and lack of solidarity expose India’s journalists to attack

By Sumit Galhotra

Corruption scandals make for attention-grabbing headlines, but when journalists who expose wrongdoing are killed, their murder is often the end of the story. For eight years India has been a fixture on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free. Perpetrators are seldom arrested and CPJ has not recorded a single conviction upheld in any of the cases of journalists murdered in India in direct relation to their work.

Jagendra Singh: discredited after death

By Sumit Galhotra and Raksha Kumar

Covered in burns and writhing in pain, Jagendra Singh cries out, “They could have arrested me. Why did they have to beat me and set me on fire?” In the video, filmed at a hospital in Lucknow where Jagendra Singh was being treated for burns that covered 60 percent of his body, the journalist accuses a police officer, Sriprakash Rai, and his team, of dousing him in gasoline and setting him alight. A week after the attack, Jagendra Singh died from his injuries.

In search of justice for Umesh Rajput

By Sumit Galhotra and Raksha Kumar

Parmeshwar Rajput walked exhausted into his lawyer’s office in Bilaspur, weighed down by a black bag filled with court documents, police records, and newspaper clippings about his brother’s death, after the six-hour train and motorbike journey he had taken from his village of Hirabatar so he could meet with CPJ. The 36-year-old is accustomed to frequently traveling with these files. They are his only hope that the killers of his brother, Umesh Rajput, will be brought to justice.

By Shawn W. Crispin / Senior Southeast Asia Representative

Newly installed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has sent mixed messages on his commitment to upholding press freedom and combating impunity in media murders, a mix of hope and fear that has broadly defined the first months of his leadership. Uncertainty about Duterte's stance on the media's watchdog role comes against the backdrop of a "war on drugs" campaign that has resulted in the killing by police and vigilante groups of hundreds of drug suspects.

Bangkok, June 1, 2016 - The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte's comments during a press conference justifying the killing of journalists. Duterte made the remarks in response to a reporter's question on Tuesday about how his government would handle cases of media murders, according to news reports.

By Elisabeth Witchel/CPJ Impunity Campaign Consultant

Last week, the proposed Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act emerged from the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee with approval. The bill was passed by the Senate last year. If passed by the full House of Representatives and signed into law by the president, it has the potential to offer partial redress to one of the most chilling truths facing journalists today: in 90 percent of cases, the murders of journalists go unpunished.

To rewrite one's story, when it is so painful, feels like a kind of suicide. Psychologists would say that is part of a grieving process, helping close nefarious chapters in life. We, the victims of sexual violence, are often told that. But I think it would be more helpful to the goal of moving forward if receiving justice were part of the process.

New York, March 23, 2016 -- A military court in Mogadishu on Sunday upheld sentences imposed on six people convicted in connection with the December 2015 murder of Somali broadcast journalist Hindia Haji Mohamed.

New York, March 4, 2016 -- A military court in Mogadishu on Thursday found Hassan Hanafi, a former journalist, guilty of direct or indirect involvement in the killing five journalists on behalf of the armed militant group Al-Shabaab, according to news reports. The court sentenced him to death by execution, which in Somalia is usually carried out by firing squad.