Reporting on Corruption – UNODC Resource – Women Journalists & Human Rights Defenders
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: July 22, 2005
WUNRN
REPORTING ON CORRUPTION – UNODC
RESOURCE – WOMEN JOURNALISTS & HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
Women Journalists Increasingly at
Risk of Threats, Violence
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UNODC – United Nations Office on
Drugs & Crime
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Publication:
Unfortunately,
this growing embrace of the freedoms of opinion and expression including the
right of access to information12 has not coincided with better and
safer conditions for journalists and a free press. According to a report by the
Secretary-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), 127 journalists were killed doing their jobs in the
period 2011-2012. Most of the victims were “journalists reporting on local
conflicts, corruption and other illegal activities, and many of these attacks
were perpetrated by police and security personnel, militia, as well as
non-state actors, such as organized crime groups”.A 2013 Freedom House report
found that “less than 14 per cent of the world’s people—or roughly one in
six—live in countries where coverage of political news is robust, the safety of
journalists is guaranteed, state intrusion in media affairs is minimal, and the
press is not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures”.In the past five years,
there have been significant declines in many countries, “suggesting that attempts
to restrict press freedom are widespread and challenges to expanding media
diversity and access to information remain considerable”. Furthermore,
journalists are routinely targeted by attackers with impunity in many parts of
the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Half of all the
journalists killed in 2012 covered politics or investigated matters of
corruption.
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