CPJ testimony focuses on Russian impunity
Nina Ognianova, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, provided testimony to the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe on the pressing issue of impunity in journalist murders in Russia. The commission held a hearing this week on Russia’s human rights record. A transcript of the testimony follows:
Impunity in the Philippines: No exaggeration
When we launched CPJ’s new Impunity Index today in Manila, the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo reacted viscerally. Just after we released the report, which prominently features the Philippines, Presidential Press Secretary Cerge Remonde sent out a statement to journalists by text message describing the report as “a bit of an exaggeration.”
Seeking justice for Marlene Garcia-Esperat
Today CPJ launched its 2009 Global Impunity Index in Manila to mark the fourth anniversary of the murder of Marlene Garcia-Esperat, left, a Philippine columnist who reported on corruption in the government’s agriculture department. Garcia-Esperat was gunned down in her home in front of her family in a case that has become emblematic of the…
In Russia, criminal ties to government fuel impunity
In Russia, even official statistics present a depressing picture: Contract-style murders of journalists, more often than not, remain unsolved. Even the rare investigations that result in trials do not answer the main question: Who ordered the killing?
Going beyond national borders to combat impunity
Combating impunity has been a long and difficult process, full of obstacles and problems. At the national level it has not been easy, so much of our work is carried out using the supranational tools that we helped develop. They began taking shape through international intergovernmental declarations, in conclusions reached by international legislative and judicial…
The long road ahead after masterminds’ conviction
The conviction of the masterminds of José Emeterio Rivas’ murder did not surprise his colleagues in Barrancabermeja, a city in the northern Santander province, where the journalist was shot in 2003. The former mayor’s involvement in the crime and his relationship with paramilitary forces was a well-known secret in the city. Despite witnesses’ fear and…
Murder pushes Novaya Gazeta to request guns
In a November 2007 interview, just before receiving CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award, Dmitry Muratov, the editor of the embattled Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, recalled the loss of three colleagues to work-related murders in six years. “We have suffered war-like casualties,” Muratov said.