ACCORDING TO CPJ: RP IN MEDIA SLAY 'SHAME LIST'
UNITED NATIONS, MAY 2, 2008 (STAR) The Philippines is one of 13 countries that are the worst offenders in letting killers of journalists get away with murder, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.“We are hoping governments are embarrassed to be on the list” and will take action, said Joel Simon, the committee’s executive director.
Simon said the countries on the list have law enforcement institutions but generally lack the political will to go after the killers of journalists.
The committee said governments in the 13 countries – from war-torn Iraq and Somalia to peaceful democracies including Mexico, Russia and India – have consistently failed to solve murders where journalists were targeted from 1998 through 2007.
There are at least 199 unsolved murders in these countries during that 10-year period. Twenty-four of these cases are in the Philippines. The other unsolved murders number 79 in Iraq, at least 20 in Colombia, 14 in Russia, nine in Sierra Leone, eight in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, seven in Afghanistan and Mexico, and five in Somalia, Nepal and India.
“This is a naming and shaming exercise,” Prof. Sheila Coronel, the Filipina director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism of the Columbia University Journalism School, said at a news conference of the launching of the new Impunity Index at the UN headquarters Wednesday.
The new index was released by the committee in advance of World Press Freedom Day on Saturday.
In a message marking the day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 60 years ago, guarantees freedom of the press, which he called “one of the foundations of peace and democracy.”
“Attacks on freedom of the press are attacks against international law, against humanity, against freedom itself – against everything the United Nations stands for,” he said. “I am therefore all the more alarmed at the way journalists are increasingly being targeted around the world, and dismayed when such crimes are not thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.
“I call on all societies to spare no effort in bringing to justice the perpetrators of attacks on journalists... And I call on everyone of us to work for the freedom – and the safety – of the press everywhere,” the secretary-general said.
While the Philippines has a free and vibrant press, journalists covering corruption, crime, and politics have repeatedly been targeted with violence and broadcast commentators and reporters in provincial regions are especially vulnerable, the committee said in a special report on its website Wednesday titled “Getting Away with Murder.”
Politicians and police have been implicated in a number of slayings, but corruption in the local court system has stymied efforts to prosecute and no convictions have been obtained in 24 cases, it added.
Media groups have counted about 80 journalists killed in the Philippines since the restoration of democracy in 1986.
“Every time a journalist is murdered and the killer is allowed to walk free it sends a terrible signal to the press and to others who would harm journalists,” Simon said.
“The governments on this list simply must do more to demonstrate a real commitment to a free press. Lip service won’t help save journalists’ lives,” the committee executive director stressed. “We are calling for action: thorough investigations and vigorous prosecutions in all journalist homicides.”
The list of unsolved murders includes well-known investigative reporters Anna Politkovskaya in Russia and Guillermo Bravo Vega in Colombia, Al-Arabiya correspondent Atwar Bahjat in Iraq, and kidnapped Pakistani reporter Hayatullah Khan, the committee said.
Simon explained that the index was compiled by examining every nation in the world and calculating the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of their population. Only countries with five or more unsolved murders were included.
On this basis, the worst offenders are three countries that have been mired in conflict – Iraq, Sierra Leone and Somalia.
Simon said most killings in war zones are murders and the committee only included those journalists who were targeted, not those caught in crossfire.
Another key finding, he said, is that most countries on the Impunity Index are democratic and not at war.
The index also surprisingly includes six countries from South Asia – Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Committee spokeswoman Abi Wright said this shows the vulnerability of journalists in the region. – AP, Jose Katigbak, STAR Washington Bureau
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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