Getting away with murder

CPJ’s 2019 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free Somalia is the world’s worst country for the fifth year in a row when it comes to prosecuting murderers of journalists, Committee to Protect Journalist’s (CPJ’s) 2019 Global Impunity Index found. War and political instability have fostered a deadly […]

CPJ’s 2019 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free

Somalia is the world’s worst country for the fifth year in a row when it comes to prosecuting murderers of journalists, Committee to Protect Journalist’s (CPJ’s) 2019 Global Impunity Index found. War and political instability have fostered a deadly cycle of violence and impunity, along with inaction by states worldwide.

The 13 countries that make up the list of the world’s worst impunity offenders represent a mix of conflict-ridden regions and more stable countries where criminal groups, politicians, government officials, and other powerful actors resort to violence to silence critical and investigative reporting. Unchecked corruption, ineffective institutions, and lack of political will to pursue robust investigations are all factors behind impunity, CPJ has found.

The Philippines has been among the worst five countries nearly every year since the index was first published in 2008. The country’s fifth-worst ranking is due in part to the deadly ambush of 58 individuals, including 32 journalists and media workers, in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, on November 23, 2009. The trial of over 100 suspects behind the massacre is due to conclude this year, but as of August 31, 2019-the final date CPJ counted convictions for this year’s index-no verdict had been announced. Ampatuan clan patriarch and former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., whom prosecutors said was the mastermind behind the attack, died in detention in July 2015, reports said.

In the past decade, armed militant groups such as Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and the Islamic State group have most often targeted journalists with complete impunity. However, criminal groups have become a major threat, killing large numbers of journalists and routinely escaping justice. Mexico, to date this year’s deadliest country for journalists, has seen its impunity rating worsen nearly every year since 2008, as criminal cartels waged a campaign of terror against the media. Of at least 31 murders of journalists that took place in Mexico during the index period, authorities have secured only one conviction.

During the 10-year index period ending August 31, 2019, 318 journalists were murdered for their work worldwide and in 86% of those cases no perpetrators have been successfully prosecuted. Last year, CPJ recorded complete impunity in 85% of cases. Historically, this number has been closer to 90%; the past two years reflect a small improvement. The 13 countries on the index account for more than three quarters (222) of the global total of unsolved murders of journalists for the index period. All 13 have featured multiple times since CPJ first compiled the index in 2008, and seven have appeared every year.

While these countries show the most entrenched patterns of violence and impunity, it has become clear over time that even one murder of a journalist can have a chilling effect and that when the perpetrators escape justice, the intimidation is amplified. When Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was ambushed and murdered in the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2018, critics of Saudi Arabia worldwide received the message that there is no safe harbor.

In recent years, unchecked anti-press violence has spread to places previously considered relatively safe for the media. The October 2017 car bombing that killed blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, followed by the murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak in February 2018, put journalists in the EU on notice that covering crime and corruption can be deadly. Slovakia indicted four people, including the suspected mastermind, earlier this month. However, authorities there and in Malta have failed to achieve convictions in either case.

Colombia is the only country to fall off the index since last year. In December, President Iván Duque announced that the leader of a drug trafficking group accused of murdering two journalists and their driver was killed in a joint police and military operation near the border with Ecuador. (CPJ)