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Women journalists stand against impunity

IAWRT impunity Nov 2 01

IAWRT condemns all attacks on journalists and media workers

IAWRT joins the annual observance of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on November 2.

At least 324 journalists were murdered worldwide in the past decade and no perpetrators have been convicted in 85% of these cases – according to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Global Impunity Index 2019 ‘Getting Away With Murder’. The CPJ says 10 out of the 19 journalists killed in 2019 alone were murder cases. In 2019 alone, 19 journalists have been killed, with 10 of them murdered.

Forty-five women journalists (out of 1,357 killed) were killed since 2009 and 27 of these cases remain unsolved. 

In the CPJ index, four countries where IAWRT has country chapters rank in the top 14. Iraq ranked 3rd with 35 unsolved cases of journalist killings in a 10-year period. The Philippines ranked 5th with 40 unsolved cases, Afghanistan ranked 6th with 11 unsolved cases and India ranked 14 with 18 unsolved cases.

“IAWRT urges governments to bring perpetrators of crimes against journalists and media workers to justice, to curb impunity in their countries and to ensure that journalists can work freely and independently,” says Violet Gonda, President of IAWRT.

“Journalists continue to be killed for reporting the news and bringing information to the public, preventing effective education.”

“Societies suffer when journalists are attacked”

“Killings of journalists silence voices and impair the public’s need for information. The lack of justice served for these killings emboldens killers. Impunity leads to more killings. Killings daunt reporting and the search for truth. We must always call out and stand against killings of journalists and the culture of impunity that besiege countries around the globe.”

Gonda added: “IAWRT urges governments to bring perpetrators of crimes against journalists and media workers to justice, to curb impunity in their countries and to ensure that journalists, including women journalists, can work freely and independently.”

IAWRT remembers and pays tribute to women journalists killed on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

  • Viktoria Marinova, a Bulgarian journalist, was raped, bashed, and suffocated and her body was found on October 6, 2018. She was looking into alleged fraud involving EU funds linked to big businessmen and politicians and prompted speculation that she may have been targeted as ‘a warning’;
  • Lyra McKee, a North Irish freelance journalist shot dead in Derry, Northern Ireland on April 18, 2019 while covering clashes in Creggan, a suburb of Londonderry (Derry). The ‘New IRA’, a dissident republican group, has admitted responsibility for her murder;
  • Norma Sarabia Garduza, killed on June 11, 2019, just two months after she reported on a series of violent crimes in Huimanguillo, Mexico and five years after she reported to police that she had received threats from local police officers after she covered alleged involvement of police in kidnappings.
  • Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed in a car bomb attack on Oct 16, 2017 for exposing corruption in Malta;
  • Gauri Lankesh, shot dead in India on September 25, 2017 for criticizing the woman’s place in the caste system;
  • Miroslava Breach, killed on March 23, 2017, an anti-corruption and human rights reporter for the Norte de Ciudad Juárez and La Jornada newspapers in Mexico;
  • Kim Wall, a Swedish journalist who was sexually assaulted and killed while working on a submarine story in August 2017;

Many other women journalists also face legal persecution and other forms of harassments for their work.

The IAWRT Iraq-Kurdistan chapter has also appealed for support as the situation in their country has reached a very dangerous stage

The chapter head Awaz Salim says “a day does not pass without militias targeting young women, activists and media workers.”

Journalists in Kurdistan are also having their rights violated. An IAWRT Iraq-Kurdistan member was put on trial for the ‘misuse of electronic devices’ over a Facebook post.

In the Philippines, journalist Anne Krueger was unlawfully arrested with 56 others in simultaneous raids on various offices in Bacolod City in the Negros island in the central Philippines on October 31st. A live video broadcast on Facebook by Krueger minutes before her arrest reportedly exposes ‘evidence being planted’ by the authorities who conducted the raid. The Philippines military publicly named her as a ‘communist leader in a propaganda work’.

Women have been drawn to the frontline of the attacks.

The Reporters San Frontières Press Freedom Awards in 2019 went to three women journalists, which is an indication of women increasingly risking their lives and security in the name of media freedom.

Women journalists continue to struggle to keep women voices and stories published, aired and broadcast up to this day.
 
Killings of journalists silence voices and impair the public’s need for information. The lack of justice served for these killings emboldens killers. Impunity leads to more killings. Killings chill reporting and the search for truth. We must always call out and stand against killings of journalists and the culture of impunity that besiege countries around the globe.

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IAWRT: 2018 WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

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Attacks on media women undermine the work of women journalists and is a media freedom issue. 

Journalists around the world still face serious challenges and are victims of murder, detention, torture, disappearances, extrajudicial killings along with online attacks and sexual harassment which are overwhelmingly directed at female journalists.

The International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) once again joins the rest of the world to mark World Press Freedom Day to call for the safety of journalists especially female journalists around the World. We condemn the recent targeted killing of ten journalists in a series of attacks in Afghanistan; among them was one female journalist.

A number of women journalists have died in the line of duty in various countries. IAWRT would like to pay tribute to:

  •  Daphne Caruana Galizia (killed in a car bomb attack on 16 October 2017 for exposing corruption in Malta;
  • Gauri Lankesh (shot dead in India on 25 September 2017) for criticizing the woman’s place in the caste system;
  • Miroslava Breach (killed on 23 March 2017), an anti-corruption and human rights reporter for the Norte de Ciudad Juárez and La Jornada newspapers in Mexico;
  • Kim Wall, a Swedish journalist who was sexually assaulted and killed while working on a submarine story in August 2017.

We also condemn the threats to journalists in the Philippines. The most recent ones being threats to: Rosemarie Alcaraz of Radio Natin Guimba, who received threats after recording on camera the shooting of farmers by men working for a local landlord and Kath M. Cortez, who was physically harassed for covering a protest action in Marawi, the city at the cxentre of the matail law dclaration on the Island of Mondinao.

In Iran, Reporters Without Borders have revealed that many feminist journalists have been subject to judicial harassment and imprisonment in connection with their writing. They include: Mansoureh Shojaee, who now lives in exile, and Narges Mohammadi, who is still detained. Moreover, efforts to discredit the role of media have become stronger. The powers-that-be wield disinformation and lies via social media to undermine the truth. Women journalists have become targets of these attacks, often with a sexual dimension.

The recent cyber-attacks against Indian journalist Rana Ayyub is a case in point. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ayyub received pornographic videos of her face morphed onto “bodies of naked women” in her Facebook inbox and via Twitter in April. After that, trolls barraged her with sexist comments.

The same treatment was received by Filipino women journalists Jamela Alindogan, Gretchen Malalad, Inday Espina-Varona, among others, for writing about killings associated with President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called ‘anti-drug operations’.

The consequence of the attacks on media women globally undermines the work of women journalists and is a media freedom issue.  IAWRT is committed to ensure safety of journalists around the World. We launched a Safety Handbook for Journalists in 2017 , with advice and recommendations on security and safety, which is specially addressed to women journalists working in war and conflict. IAWRT has also given safety training to hundreds of journalists around the world.

We commend the support from various partners including UNESCO and FOKUS that have enabled us to reach out to vulnerable journalists. We have held a number of workshops around safety in our IAWRT Chapters and commit to continue with the struggle. IAWRT appreciates the work of the local chapters in countries that are high risk: such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where Najiba Ayubi and Awaz Salim respoctively have established chapters respectively (to be officially installed later this year).

On World Press Freedom Day 2018, IAWRT celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom; pays tribute to our colleagues who were killed doing their jobs and joins partners all over the world including; UNESCO, RSF, IWMF, CPJ and EJN who continue to defend the media from attacks on their independence.

In the words of UN Secretary General António Guterres: “Promoting a free press is standing up for our right to truth.”

IAWRT President, Violet Gonda 

 

 

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