International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against: Justice remains elusive in the vast majority of journalist murders

Over the past decade, 226 of the 278 journalists killed in a nexus of corruption, organized crime, extremist groups, and government retaliation, have been murdered with impunity, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2021 Impunity Index.

"When justice is subject to corruption and political power feuds, these forces silence journalists and the critical stories they tell,” said Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, CPJ’s advocacy and communications director.

"It is imperative that authorities fully investigate these crimes and stop censorship by murder. This task cannot be left to the families, colleagues, and civil society groups tirelessly seeking justice.”

According to the CPJ, since the beginning of this year, 3 journalists have been killed in Iraq.

The annual Index spotlights countries where journalists are murdered and their killers go free. It calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of the population and examines journalist murders that occurred between September 1, 2011, and August 31, 2021. Only those nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index. 

The Index shows little change from 2020, with Somalia remaining the worst country for impunity in journalist killings for the seventh year.

It is followed by Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan. Illustrating the sustained lack of accountability, seven of the countries on the list have appeared every year. In 81% of all cases in the Index, CPJ recorded complete impunity.

While the Index reflects some of the most dangerous countries for journalists, it doesn’t include the full scope of threats to press freedom, from imprisonment to surveillance, to physical attacks.

For example, Afghanistan’s spot on the Index did not change, yet its vibrant media landscape has been decimated since the Taliban took control of the country during the U.S. withdrawal. As Afghanistan’s judicial system collapses, the prospect of justice for the 17 journalists killed in the last 10 years moves further out of reach.

As for Iraq, the country has recently seen the issuance of a death sentence against one of the killers of journalist Ahmed Abdel Samad and photojournalist Safaa Ghali in Basra, but without revealing who planned, executed, and created the death squads involved in killing journalists and threatening dozens of them.

In its report, the Society For Defending Press Freedom (SDPF) in Iraq, as it commends the Iraqi judiciary, and congratulates the family of the slain journalists, it declared at the same time that the death sentence for one offender out of a team of assassinations consisting of (at least) four members, does not mean that Iraq has achieved any progress. 

The SDPF expressed its regret for the failure of successive governments to prosecute the perpetrators involved in the killing of journalists since 2003 until now, and even the failure to reveal the parties behind the assassinations and disappearances, whether they were political, outlaw or terrorist.

According to the SDPF report, 92 journalists have been killed in an index span of just 10 years.

The United Nations set November 2, as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, and called on its member states to identify an appropriate way to confront the spread of impunity.

Kurdish officials such as the speaker of Kurdistan Parliament, Rewaz Fayeq, said: "Any kind of assault, torture, threats, mockery, and kidnapping would create an unstable and unsafe environment for media work."

She also condemned the methods of threats and harassment, while supporting every voice defending Human rights and freedom of expression.



PUKmedia