The vast majority of killings of journalists on an international scale go completely unpunished, UNESCO said in a report ahead of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes of This Nature (pictured by Reuters/Stringer, top, mourning the killing by Israel of two other journalists in the Gaza Strip).
“In 2022 and 2023, a journalist was murdered every four days, simply for doing his necessary work in search of the truth. In the majority of cases, no one will ever be held accountable for these murders,” reports the director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Training Organization, Audrey Azoulet, in the report (“Journalists at the frontlines of crises and emergencies“).
85% of journalist murders recorded by UNESCO since 2006 are considered unsolved, the text explains.
In the face of this alarmingly high “level of impunity”, the organization urges states to “increase their efforts”.
During the two years covered by the UNESCO report (2022-2023), 162 journalists were killed, almost half in countries where armed conflicts are taking place.
In 2022, the country that recorded the heaviest toll of crimes of this nature was Mexico, with 19 cases. Ukraine followed, where 11 journalists were killed.
In 2023, “it was the State of Palestine that recorded the highest number of murders: 24 journalists were killed,” the report continues.
Palestine became a full member state of UNESCO in 2011.
And women in the spotlight
The report points out that there is generally an “increase in the number of murders” of journalists “in countries at war”.
Local journalists become victims of “86% of murders related to the coverage of armed conflicts”, the text emphasizes.
Besides, the organization points out that “journalists continue to be murdered in their homes or near their homes”, which “exposes their families to enormous danger”.
In other geographic areas, most of the journalists killed were covering “organized crime,” “corruption” cases, or died “while reporting on protests,” UNESCO points out.
Much more than in previous years, in 2022 women were targeted by murderous journalists. The report mentions ten such cases this year.
The victims included Maria Guadalupe Lourdes Maldonado Lopez, who was killed by a gunman on the Mexico-US border, and Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank.
