In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2nd November as the ‘International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists’. The date was chosen in commemoration of the assassination of two French journalists in Mali on 2 November 2013.
The need to focus on impunity relies not only on the worrying fact that over the last eleven years at least 930 journalists have been killed for informing the public, but also on the low global conviction rate for violent crimes against journalists and media workers, as less than one in ten cases committed over the past decade has led to a conviction. What is more, these figures do not include other types of threats against journalists, as for instance torture, kidnapping, arbitrary detention, intimidation and harassment in both conflict and non-conflict situations.
International Day to End Impunity highlights all these issues, by providing a strategic opportunity to all stakeholders to focus public attention on the importance of ending impunity for crimes against journalists. Among other things, it calls on Member States to do their utmost to promote a safe and enabling environment for journalists to perform their work independently and to bring the perpetrators of crimes against journalists to justice.
For further information see UNESCO’s page on International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists 2017.
Additionally, on Twitter, check the hashtags #EndImpunity #JournoSafe
Photo © UNESCO
With information from UNESCO and United Nations.