EDITOR’S NOTE: On January 29, 2015, reports in the Colombian press said Johanny Vargas issued a statement saying he had not been kidnapped and that his disappearance occurred under personal circumstances. CPJ is investigating. Bogotá, January 23, 2015–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the abduction of Colombian news photographer Johanny Vargas and calls on authorities…
Bogotá, Colombia, December 22, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the conviction of a former high-ranking Colombian intelligence official who on December 19 was sentenced to 11 years in prison for carrying out a campaign of aggression and death threats against investigative journalist Claudia Julieta Duque, according to news reports.
Breaking the Cycle of Impunity in the Killing of Journalists The lack of justice in hundreds of murders of journalists around the world is one of the greatest threats to press freedom today. While international attention to the issue has grown over the past decade, there has been little progress in bringing down rates of…
About This Report Elisabeth Witchel, the founder of CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity, is the lead author of this report. Witchel launched the campaign in 2007 and has compiled five editions of the organization’s annual Global Impunity Index as well as several other major reports. She has worked in human rights and journalism for more…
1. What Does Impunity Mean? In 1981, the year CPJ was founded, Argentina was enmeshed in the so-called Dirty War, in which dozens of journalists were disappeared. Most were never seen again. To this day, no one has systematically documented the media murders that took place, and no one knows precisely how many journalists perished.…
2. Measuring Progress Against Stubborn Reality In November 2013, the United Nations General Assembly put the issue of impunity squarely on the global agenda. The Resolution on Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, adopted by consensus, describes the absence of justice for victims as “one of the main challenges to strengthening the protection…
3. Where Impunity Thrives A climate of impunity reached a tragic culmination on November 23, 2009, when gunmen ambushed a caravan escorting political candidate Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu as he prepared to file papers to become a candidate for provincial governor in the Philippines. The attackers slaughtered 58 people, among them 30 journalists and two media…
4. Steps That Work and Those That Don’t On May 3, 2011, CPJ representatives traveled to Pakistan to raise concerns about the increasing attacks against journalists there and the country’s high rate of impunity. It was a moment of drama: The previous day, American forces had killed Osama bin Laden in nearby Abbottabad. But Pakistani…
5. Building Pressure, Enforcing Compliance The United Nations has escalated its focus on journalist killings, declaring that unpunished attacks against journalists are a major threat not only to press freedom, but also to all major areas of the U.N.’s work. In recent years, it has adopted two resolutions addressing journalists’ safety and impunity and launched…
Conclusion Today the fight against impunity has reached an important juncture. There is awareness on domestic and global levels of the extreme peril posed to journalists and the public’s right to information when violence against the press is met with official inaction. The cries for justice by freedom of expression advocates have been amplified by…