ISLAMABAD: Commemorating the Internati­onal Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on Wednesday, Unesco warned that the global impunity rate for journalists’ killings remains shockingly high at 86 per cent.

A Unesco report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity for the period 2020-21 shows that the impunity rate has fallen by only 9pc over the last 10 years. Unesco welcomes this progress, but warns such a decrease is insufficient to succeed in stopping violence.

Overall, these two years saw the lowest number of deaths than any other reporting period since the first publication of this report in 2008. The year 2021 shows the lowest annual death toll in 14 years with 55 killings.

In 2021, the largest number of fatal attacks (23 killings) occurred in Asia and the Pacific, representing 42pc of killings registered worldwide, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean with 25pc of killings (14 killings).

According to the Unesco data, in 2021, nine journalists were killed in Mexico; seven in Afghanistan; five in India; four in Pakistan; three in Congo; three in the Philippines; two each in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Myanmar and Somalia; and one each in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, in Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Turkiye and Yemen.

The Unesco report also shows that there are no safe spaces for journalists. In 2020-2021, of the 117 journalists killed for being journalists, 91 — or 78pc — were killed while off the clock, for example at home, in their vehicles or in the street but not on specific assignment. Several were killed in front of family members, including their children.

Unesco promotes the safety of journalists through global awareness-raising, capacity building and by coordinating the implementation of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.

The report says though it remains unacceptably high, impunity for crimes committed against journalists has continuously decreased, by a total of 3pc since 2018, the first year of the previous biennial. In 2022, the global impunity rate was measured by Unesco at 86pc compared to 89pc in 2018. Unesco, therefore, continues to observe an upward trend of resolved cases worldwide from 11pc in 2018 to 14pc in 2022.

The data shows that there are no safe spaces for journalists. Of the 117 journalists killed in 2020-2021, 78pc, or 91 journalists, were killed while away from their offices.

Most killings occurred outside their newsrooms. Some journalists were murdered in the street or in their vehicles, and some were kidnapped and then were found dead. Several were killed in front of family members, including their children.

In 2021, the percentage of women journalists killed rose to 11pc from 6pc the previous year. This worrying development may be a reflection of women journalists being subject to online gender-based attacks which often spill over into offline violence, putting their safety at risk.

Unlike in previous reports where TV journalists were often the largest group of victims, during the 2020-2021 biennium cross-platform journalists have become the most vulnerable to fatal attacks. By 2021, they constituted 41pc of the total number of fatalities for that year. This may be linked to the changing nature of journalism and the media landscape with many journalists today working on multiple platforms.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2022