The Committee to
Protect Journalists released a report today revealing a lack of justice in
cases where journalists were murdered for doing their jobs.
The report’s authors found that 370 journalists
were killed in retaliation for their work over the last decade, and 90
percent of those cases did not lead to any conviction of perpetrators.
The 49-page report, “The Road to
Justice: Breaking the Cycle of Impunity in the Killing of Journalists,” comes out of CPJ’s Global Campaign Against
Impunity, a project that lead author Elisabeth Witchel launched in 2007.
“The unchecked,
unsolved murders of journalists who seek to inform their societies and the
world is one of the greatest threats to press freedom today,” Witchel said
in a release.
The report includes a close look at countries where impunity is particularly high, such as Iraq, Somalia, the Philippines, Russia, Mexico and Sri Lanka. Somalia’s impuity rating has more than quadrupled since 2008.
The CPJ is calling for
government leaders to condemn acts of violence against journalists and for
international bodies such as the U.N. to hold member states accountable for
their pledges against impunity.