CPJ’s 2010 Impunity Index : Getting away with murder

Deadly, unpunished violence against the press has soared in the Philippines and Somalia, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. Impunity in journalist murders also rose significantly in Russia and Mexico, two countries with long records of entrenched, anti-press violence.

But Brazil and Colombia, historically two of the world’s deadliest nations for the press, each made marked improvement in curbing deadly violence against journalists and bringing killers to justice, CPJ found. Recent convictions in Brazil, in fact, moved the country off the index entirely.

In many nations on the list, the plague of impunity is having a broader effect on society as a whole, effectively choking off the flow of news and information. In Sri Lanka, fourth on the index with 10 unsolved murders, many of the country’s most senior journalists have fled into exile in fear that they, too, would be targeted. In countries such as Mexico, CPJ research shows that self-censorship has been so widespread that major events and issues have gone uncovered.

“Our goal in compiling this index is to spur leaders in these nations to action,” said CPJ’s Simon. “Many of these cases are solvable—the perpetrators have been identified but authorities lack the political will to prosecute.”

CPJ is releasing the 2010 Impunity Index to coincide with an international summit on impunity being held today and Wednesday in New York. The summit will convene press defenders and journalists from around the world to coordinate and improve strategies to reverse deadly violence against the press.

The Index

Here are the 12 countries where journalists are murdered on a recurring basis and governments are unable or unwilling to prosecute the killers. The index covers the years 2000 through 2009.

1 IRAQ

All 88 journalist murders over the last 10 years are unsolved, putting Iraq at the top of the index for the third year in a row. All but seven cases involve local journalists, the vast majority of whom were targeted by insurgents. The victims include Al-Arabiya television correspondent Atwar Bahjat and crew members Khaled Mahmoud al-Falahi and Adnan Khairallah, who were shot on assignment outside the Golden Mosque in Samarra in 2006. There is a positive trend: For the first time since the U.S.-led invasion, CPJ documented no work-related murders in Iraq in 2009. (Four journalists were killed in crossfire in 2009.) Nevertheless, with an impunity ranking nearly three times as high as any other country, Iraq has posed unparalleled dangers to the press.

Impunity Index Rating: 2.794 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 1st with a rating of 2.983

2 SOMALIA

Somalia moved up to second on the index as journalists continued to be targeted, mainly by hard-line Al-Shabaab insurgents but some by government troops. Amid the ongoing conflict, a weak federal government failed to investigate or prosecute suspects in any of the nine murders CPJ has recorded over the last decade. Especially vulnerable are journalists from independent radio stations; seven of the victims worked for such stations. Attacks against staff of the independent broadcaster Radio Shabelle illustrate the awful conditions: After News Director Hassan Mayow Hassan was murdered by insurgents in January 2009, his successor, Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe, was gunned down in a public market five months later.

Impunity Index Rating: 1.000 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 3rd with a rating of 0.690

3 PHILIPPINES

The November 2009 massacre of 30 journalists and two media support workers in Maguindanao province more than doubled the country’s impunity rating from the previous year. Authorities have indicted nearly 200 people in the massacre, including local political leaders said to have masterminded the attack. In total, CPJ has recorded 55 unsolved murders over the last decade. Aside from the Maguindanao ambush, the country’s abysmal impunity record showed some signs of a turnaround with convictions in the 2006 killing of Armando Pace and the 2005 murder Edgar Amoro. But there is reason to believe that authorities still do not grasp the seriousness of their problem: A Supreme Court spokesman recently dismissed death threats against a reporter as “ridiculous.”

Impunity Index Rating: 0.609 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 6th with a rating of 0.273

4 SRI LANKA

Ten journalists have been murdered over the last decade for their coverage of civil war, human rights, politics, military affairs, and corruption. Not a single conviction has been obtained in any of the cases. Local and global outrage soared last year with the murder of the prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickramatunga. Deadly violence has become so entrenched that Wickramatunga predicted his own murder in a piece he wrote shortly before his death. The article, published three days after his murder, said: “Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened, and killed. It has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.” The violence and impunity have driven high numbers of Sri Lankan journalists into exile, CPJ research shows.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.496 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 4th with a rating of 0.452

5 COLOMBIA

With 15 unsolved murders since 2000, Colombia has earned its very poor standing on the index. But CPJ has charted improvements in recent years. One journalist, radio correspondent José Everardo Aguilar, has been murdered for work-related reasons in the past three years. And in 2009, prosecutors won convictions against three former public officials charged with plotting the 2003 murder of radio commentator José Emeterio Rivas.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.292 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 5th with a rating of 0.347

6 AFGHANISTAN

Amid ongoing violence and corruption, authorities have offered little sign of solving any of the seven murder cases over the last decade. In contrast to global data showing that more than 90 percent of media victims are local journalists, the majority of those murdered in Afghanistan have been international reporters. They include German freelancers Karen Fischer and Christian Struwe, who were shot near Baghlan in 2006 while doing research for a documentary.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.240 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 7th with a rating of 0.248

7 NEPAL

Nepal’s historic political shift from monarchy to a coalition-ruled democratic republic under the leadership of former Maoist rebels brought no redress in media attacks, despite a commitment by the prime minister to reverse impunity in human rights abuses. Maoist suspects in at least two murders remain at large. In total, six journalist murders have taken place in the last decade, all unpunished. These include the brutal slaying of Uma Singh in January 2009. Singh, a young print and radio reporter who documented Maoist land seizures, was fatally attacked by 15 knife-wielding men in her home. Colleagues say police have ignored Singh’s journalism as a motive for fear of political repercussions.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.210 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 8th with a rating of 0.178

8 RUSSIA

Despite recent international pressure and domestic pledges to address impunity, little progress was reported in the last year in winning convictions in journalist murders. Russia moved up one spot in this year’s index, reflecting three murders committed in 2009. In all, 18 press killings have gone unsolved since 2000. Two of the journalists killed in 2009 worked for a single newspaper, the independent Novaya Gazeta. The victims included the internationally respected reporter and human rights defender Natalya Estemirova, who was abducted from her home and shot dead in the volatile North Caucasus region.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.127 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 9th with a rating of 0.106

9 MEXICO

Astonishing levels of violence against journalists covering crime, drug trafficking, and government corruption continued in 2009, pushing Mexico up two spots on the index. Impunity in nine murders over the last decade can be largely attributed to the government’s inability to rein in organized crime’s far and brutal reach. Victims include reporter and photographer Eliseo Barrón Hernández, who was beaten and abducted in front of his wife and children in May 2009. Authorities later found Barrón’s body, tortured and shot at least 11 times, in an irrigation ditch.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.085 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 11th with a rating of 0.057

10 PAKISTAN

Pakistani authorities have won convictions in only one case in the past decade, the murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Twelve other journalist murders have gone unsolved during that time. Two of the murders were reported in 2009, a year in which journalists faced intense pressure from militants and enormous challenges in covering a series of military offensives. The 2009 victims included television correspondent Musa Khankhel, who was abducted and executed while covering a peace march in a militant-controlled area in Swat.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.072 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 10th with a rating of 0.062


11 BANGLADESH

Bangladesh has been in a holding pattern. While no journalist murders have been reported since 2005, no convictions have been won in any of the seven unsolved killings perpetrated in the first half of the decade, when journalists faced heavy reprisals for their coverage of corruption, organized crime, and extremist groups. The most recent murder claimed the life of newspaper reporter Gautam Das, who was found strangled in his office in November 2005. Police arrested several suspects in the case, but to date none have been convicted.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.044 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 12th with a rating of 0.044


12 INDIA

The country’s reputation for having vibrant news media and robust democracy masks its failure to address impunity in seven journalist murders over the past decade. Violence and intimidation of provincial reporters—particularly those covering crime, corruption, and human rights issues—are common while government investigations are ineffectual, CPJ research shows. The victims include Vikas Ranjan, a correspondent for a Hindi-language daily, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in northern Bihar state. Ranjan had been threatened repeatedly over his coverage of local crime and corruption.

Impunity Index Rating: 0.006 unsolved journalist murders per 1 million inhabitants.
Last year: Ranked 14th with a rating of 0.006

© Committee to Protect Journalists