India tops list of Saarc countries in scribe killings

NEW DELHI: India tops the list of killings of journalists in the last ten years among the countries of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) with a total of 45 deaths.Pakistan comes next with 29, followed by 19 in Bangladesh, 16 in Sri Lanka and 13 in Afghanistan.

India also figures in the list of the Top 21 bloodiest countries over the past 10 years for killing of journalists in a survey conducted by the International News Safety Institute.

Iraq leads with 138, followed by Russia (88), Colombia (72), Philippines (55), Iran (54), India, Algeria (32), the former republic of Yugoslavia (32), Mexico (31), Pakistan, Brazil (27), the United States (21), Bangladesh, Ukraine (17), Nigeria, Peru, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka (16 each), and Afghanistan, Indonesia and Thailand (13 each). Iran?s figures were swollen by one air accident in December 2005 when a military aircraft carrying news teams to cover exercises in the Gulf crashed in Tehran, killing 48 journalists and media technicians aboard.

The report ?Killing the Messenger? released yesterday found that 1,000 news media personnel around the world have been killed trying to report the news over the past 10 years - that?s almost two deaths every week.

The survey was conducted between January 1996 and June 2006 by the International News Safety Institute (INSI) - a coalition of media organisations, press freedom groups, unions and humanitarian campaigners dedicated to the safety of journalists and media staff.

The survey found that only one in four journalists died in war and other armed conflicts. At least 657 men and women were murdered in peacetime - reporting the news in their own countries, and in two-thirds of the cases, the killers were not even identified, and probably will be never be caught.

Most of those killed were murdered because of their jobs - eliminated by hostile authorities or criminals, and nine out of 10 murderers in the past decade have never been prosecuted. The news media death toll has increased steadily since 2000.

The last full year covered by the report, 2005, was a record with 147 dead. It has since emerged that 2006 was even worse, with 167 fatalities, according to INSI?s annual tally. The database includes details for 1,000 individuals of 101 nationalities, who died in 96 countries.

Shooting was by far the greatest cause of death, accounting for almost half the total. Bombing, stabbing, beating, torture, strangulation and decapitation were also used to silence reporting. Some men and women disappeared, their fate unknown. In war, it was much safer to be embedded with an army than not - independent news reporters, so-called unilaterals, accounted for 92 per cent of the dead. Overall, armed forces - regular or irregular - police and officials accounted for 22 per cent of killings. The death toll was evenly split between press and broadcast. But news agencies, which are fewer in number, were relatively badly hit with six per cent of the total. Most of those who died were on staff -- 91 per cent against 9 per cent freelance -- and one-third fell near their home, office or hotel.

The International Federation of Journalists today welcomed the report and said ?this confirms the shocking reality that journalists and the people who work with them are at risk today more than ever before.? IFJ President Christopher Warren said ?It is a wake-up call to the industry and the international political community ? we must do more to find and prosecute the killers and we must act together to reduce the risks our people face.?

The IFJ says the report reinforces the calls made by the United Nations Security Council in December for governments to do more to challenge impunity in the killing of journalists.

According to INSI Director Rodney Pinder, "in many countries, murder has become the easiest, cheapest and most effective way of silencing troublesome reporting, and the more the killers get away with it the more the spiral of death is forced upwards." He added that ?Most of those killed were murdered because of their jobs; eliminated by hostile authorities or criminals as they tried to shine light into the darkest corners of their societies."

The Chairman of the special INSI inquiry - BBC Global News Director Richard Sambrook ? says "The figures show that killing a journalist is virtually risk free. Nine out of 10 murderers in the past decade have never been prosecuted. This encourages more of the same. This is the most shocking fact at the heart of the inquiry.?

He said "Ongoing impunity for the killers of journalists, who put themselves in harm?s way to keep world society informed, shames not only the governments who are responsible for their own lack of action but also the democracies that stand aside in silence. Following this inquiry, the most comprehensive ever in its field, they can no longer plead ignorance of the scale and nature of the problem."

The report?s recommendations challenge the United Nations, international development institutions (such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) national governments, military and security forces, news organisations and journalists to support measures that will improve the safety of security of journalists.

INSI has recommended that governments should pledge to live up to their responsibilities under UN Security Council Resolution 1738 which condemns attacks on journalists and other news professionals by putting an end to such practices. They should pledge to respect the letter and spirit of the Resolution and ensure an end to impunity for those who harm journalists by prosecuting those responsible for serious violations. International development institutions, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, should include a country?s record on the murder of journalists when assessing the granting of aid.

Furthermore, individual governments must ensure crimes against journalists are investigated thoroughly and all perpetrators prosecuted, all militaries should recognise the right of news media personnel to be present in the battle space, every military and national security entity should hold full and open inquiries whenever a member of the news media is killed in an incident involving its personnel.

It was also recommended that all news organisations should provide proper safety training (including those covering hostile environments) and equipment for staff.

No one central authority records the deaths of news media staff on a regular basis. The main journalist support groups that regularly monitor casualties include the International Federation of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, the World Association of Newspapers, Reporters Without Borders and INSI.

INSI a non-governmental organisation completely dedicated to the safety of journalists and media staff. It is a network of media organisations, press freedom groups, unions and humanitarian campaigners working to create a culture of safety in media in all corners of the world. It is a non-profit, supported entirely by membership contributions from organisations and individuals and it seeks to raise money from international donors to provide safety training free of charge to news media staff in danger and lacking the resources or knowledge to secure their own. It is the only organisation doing this in a focused and sustained way.

The working programme of the Institute provides an information service covering all aspects of news safety and includes an extensive programme of risk-awareness training for media staff in poorer regions where news gatherers are routinely under pressure, but where economic and social conditions deny them access to basic safety services.

The Institute is led and managed by media professionals. It supports and contributes to a global network of press freedom groups and promotes safety standards that will make journalism safer and more professional.

INSI was invited to undertake the inquiry by press freedom and media support groups at a meeting in Geneva in 2004 called to discuss the rising news media death toll around the world.

It formed an international Committee of Inquiry, led by Richard Sambrook and comprising news organisations, individual journalists, journalist support groups and international legal experts. The Inquiry team conducted a series of interviews with affected journalist and support staff in critical areas and compiled a database containing details of the deaths of journalists and media workers in violent circumstances which goes back 10 years to 1996.