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A staggering report from UNESCO reveals that over 1,700 journalists have been killed worldwide between 2006 and 2024, with approximately 85 percent of these cases remaining unresolved in the courts. This alarming statistic highlights the grave risks faced by journalists in their pursuit of truth and accountability. Each year, on November 2, the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need to protect media professionals and ensure justice for those who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
This year, the day also marks the release of UNESCO’s biannual Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists, showing a 38 percent rise in journalist killings since the previous report.
In his 2024 message for the Day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that Gaza has seen the highest number of killings of journalists and media workers in any war in decades, and called on governments to take urgent steps to protect journalists, investigate crimes against them, and prosecute perpetrators.
The war in Gaza inevitably dominated the 2024 UN International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East on Friday, an event that has taken place annually for the past three decades, with the aim of enhancing dialogue and understanding between media practitioners, and fostering their contributions in support of a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In a statement to the Seminar, read out by UN head of global communications, Melissa Fleming, Mr. Guterres noted that journalists in Gaza have been killed “at a level unseen in any conflict in modern times,” adding that the ongoing ban preventing international journalists from Gaza “suffocates the truth even further.”
Below is an excerpt of the comments made by Cheikh Niang, Chairman of the UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and the Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations; Guilherme Canela, Chief of Section, Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists, UNESCO; and Mohammad Ali Alnsour, Chief of the Middle East and North Africa Section, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
One year has passed since the events of October 7th, 2023, when Palestinian militants attacked Israel, followed by a devastating Israel. Israeli response in Gaza.
Since then, access to information has been severely curtailed. Journalists have been killed, newsrooms destroyed, foreign press blocked and communications cut. Israeli forces, as the occupying power, have systematically dismantled Palestinian media infrastructure. Silencing voices through restrictions, threats, targeted killings and censorship.
In the past 380 days, over 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. These were voices reporting on possible war crimes, silenced before their stories could be fully told.
Journalists in Gaza continue to report on the humanitarian crisis, often at great personal risk, providing the world with an accurate picture of the unfolding tragedy. We honour their courage and recognize that their loss silences their stories and severely limits the public’s access to the truth.
UNESCO Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity has, for many years, been showing a decrease in the number of journalists killed in conflicts compared with the journalists killed in other situations.
This is not true for this report. Since the report we issued in 2017, it was completely changed because of the situation in Gaza. Journalists were killed because they were telling a story, a story that is relevant for each one of us and of each citizen.
The International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
Every two years, the awareness raising campaign for the commemoration of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists coincides with the findings of the Report outlining the current state of global and regional impunity.
UNESCO is concerned that impunity damages whole societies by covering up serious human rights abuses, corruption, and crime. Governments, civil society, the media, and everyone concerned to uphold the rule of law are being asked to join in the global efforts to end impunity.