Combating impunity for attacks on journalists

Each year on November 2, the United Nations recognizes International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. It’s a grim recognition but one that is needed now more than ever.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) maintains a tally of slain journalists called the Observatory of Killed Journalists. It’s a database with facts about 1,416 journalists killed around the world since 1993.

A research team of students is working with me and a colleague to create our own detailed database built on the foundation of the UNESCO Observatory. We are focusing our attention on 1,057 unresolved cases of killed journalists since 2006. In the video below, I describe our research question.

The report by UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard into the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi calls upon the international community to create new mechanisms to combat impunity for attacks on journalists. Our research thus far supports the idea that those mechanisms are needed. Some of our conclusions will be presented at an academic conference in connection with a UNESCO event recognizing World Press Freedom Day. The event was to be held at The Hague in April 2020 but has been converted to a virtual conference and rescheduled for December 2020.

We have noted that 90 percent of journalist killings are unresolved by local law enforcement authorities. Of the 1,057 unresolved journalist killings, 94 percent of the journalists were men and 6 percent were women. We are also looking at whether they were local or foreign correspondents, and staff or freelancers. We are tabulating the media in which they worked—TV, radio, print, online or cross-platform. We are categorizing the deaths as murders, caught in cross-fire, terrorist attacks and others. We are compiling narratives about each incident. All of this data will allow us to reach informed conclusions about the potential effectiveness of Callamard’s proposals, and I describe some preliminary thoughts below.

Countries with more than 20 unresolved journalist killings since 2006 are the following (click on the country name for more information in the UNESCO Observatory):

On a per capita basis, the most deadly places for journalists are, in order, Libya; Syria; Iraq; Somalia; and Honduras. Not surprisingly, these countries are rated low for general rule of law as well as freedom of expression by the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index. So there are obviously some general rule of law and justice problems at work here, but also many journalists have been specifically targeted for violence by insurgents or even government officials.

We look forward to sharing more details about the research once we complete it. I have a few ideas already about further research.