‘Together, we must end the cycle of impunity and safeguard the right of journalists to speak truth to power,’ said Secretary General United Nations Ban Ki-moon on International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on Monday.
A UN statement said over the past decade, more than 700 journalists had been killed for bringing news and information to the public. Worryingly, only one in ten cases committed against media workers over the past decade has led to a conviction.
‘This impunity emboldens the perpetrators of the crimes and at the same time has a chilling effect on society including journalists themselves. Impunity breeds impunity and feeds into a vicious cycle,’ it said.
The Report on Safety of Media Workers released by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) presents a bleak picture of level of insecurity faced by Pakistani journalists and calls of serious efforts by governments and media to change the present situation where those that kill, injure, abduct and threaten journalists are almost never punished.
The Report documents that since 2001, 47 media workers have been murdered, 164 injured, 88 assaulted, 21 abducted and 40 detained. In addition 24 media professionals were died while covering dangerous assignments. There have been convictions in only two cases out of 384 cases of violence against media.
‘Because of conflicts and insurgencies the number of murders and killings is the highest in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. Since 2001, 21 journalists and media workers were killed in Balochistan, 19 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 9 in FATA and 15 in Sindh, 4 in Punjab and 3 in Islamabad,’ it said.
Threats and violence have forced many journalists to move from these danger zones and to leave the profession or to resort to self-censorship, particularly in conflict areas. As a consequence, news reports from conflict areas are based on press releases, not on observations by independent journalists. Thus, new reports that are published or broadcast lack credibility and do not inform the public in an objective manner.
