The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has reiterated that international institutions ought to protect journalists and end impunity everywhere by forcing governments to abide by United Nations (UN) resolutions.
“Perhaps we do not need to have further declarations but the core of our joint campaign should be to urge international institutions to take action,” stressed IFJ president Jim Boumelha on the second and final day of the World Media Summit Doha 2016 yesterday.
Many of the resolutions adopted both at UN and at the regional level to explicitly address the issue of impunity are weak and non-binding, he observed.
Based on IFJ’s records, around 2,700 journalists have died in the last 25 years, an average of about two journalists or media workers dying every week.
The invasion of Iraq triggered the killing of more than 400 journalists and the scale of unsolved journalists’ murder “hits as hard as a bullet.”
Killers also get away with murders (nine out of 10 cases), about 89% without being persecuted.
When IFJ started counting the number of killed journalists in 1990, it recorded 40 cases in the same year.
“We do not just remember them and pay our respect but we also protest relentlessly, expose the shameful failure of governments to properly investigate and prosecute the killers and we lead the fight for justice,” Boumelha said. “In their names we also do more every day to find ways of making journalism safer.”
He noted that many of the victims are local beat reporters whose names do not resonate in the media.
“These are different from by-lined war correspondents, who knowingly risk their lives, sometimes mistaken for combatants, get fatally caught in the crossfire, or walk on a landmine,” the IFJ official added.
He lamented that few journalists can rely on international institutions to defend their rights when jailed or murdered.
According to Boumelha, nearly three out of four (75%) journalists killed around the world did not step on a landmine or get shot in crossfire but murdered – either gunned down, stabbed or tortured.
Citing the case in Somalia, he noted that more than half of journalists killed did not die in a firefight or bombing attack but were murdered individually.
“Does anybody remember a single name of the more than 30 journalists (out of the 58 victims) killed in one incident during an election in the Philippines seven years ago? It is the biggest single mass murder of journalists,” he said.
“The same case in Yemen, that thread is a problem of impunity that cuts across geographic and political boundaries,” he said. “It is perhaps the single greatest threat to press freedom everywhere.”
Boumelha blamed weak judicial system, no political will to back investigations and incompetent investigators as reasons why impunity thrives in countries where journalists had been murdered.
“Who is behind all these journalists’ murder? It is estimated that in many cases, they are government officials,” he said. “We all agree that the world is now a more dangerous place for journalists.”