Bangladesh among countries where journalists are killed with impunity
Bangladesh has been listed among the 12 countries in the world where journalists are slain and the killers evade justice.
The country is ranked 10th out of the 12, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ.
The report - annual Global Impunity Index - says seven journalists in Bangladesh have been killed “with complete impunity” in the past decade.
The report said the members of extremist and criminal groups were responsible for the killings.
Those targeted for murder in Bangladesh were secular bloggers, journalists reporting on drug trafficking, according to the report.
The report mentioned: “In 2015, two assailants stabbed and hacked blogger Avijit Roy to death as he was leaving a book fair in the Dhaka University campus area. Roy's wife was badly injured in the attack. Roy, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi origin, wrote blog posts on secular issues including atheism and free expression. Despite multiple leads and arrests, no one has been prosecuted.”
Somalia tops the list with 26 unresolved cases in which journalists have been murdered for doing their work.
Militant groups like al-Shabaab and government officials, the report said, were responsible for the killing of journalists in the East African country. Syria, Iraq and South Sudan occupy the second, third and fourth position on the list.
The Philippines, Mexico, Pakistan, Brazil, and Russia are ranked fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth respectively. Nigeria occupies the 11th position, while India is 12th.
“CPJ’s Impunity Index calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population,” the report says of the methodology used for the ranking.
“For this index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between September 1, 2007, and August 31, 2017, and that remain unsolved.
“Only those nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on this index. CPJ defines murder as a deliberate attack against a specific journalist in relation to the victim’s work,” the report said.
CPJ said that international attention to the issue of impunity in journalist murders has increased in the past 10 years.
“The United Nations has adopted a total of five resolutions - three by the Human Rights Council, one by the General Assembly and the one by the Security Council - urging states to take measures to promote justice when journalists are attacked,” the group said.
