PH still has most unsolved media killings —watchdog

THE NEW YORK-BASED press freedom watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released its 2019 Global Impunity Index which ranks states with the worst records of prosecuting the killers of journalists. The Philippines is number five because very few killers of journalists have been punished for their crimes.

CPJ’s Global Impunity Index is published annually on November 2 to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. It relates the number of unsolved murders over a 10-year period to each country’s population.

CPJ reported that there are more than 200 unsolved killings of journalists in 13 countries, with many of the cases linked to war and civil unrest.

For the third year in a row, the CPJ said the Philippines has the most number of “unsolved murders of journalists in countries with [the] worst record for justice.”

CPJ pointed out that the Philippines has been among the worst five countries nearly every year since the index was first published in 2008. The country’s fifth-worst ranking is due in part to the deadly ambush of 58 individuals, including 32 journalists and media workers in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on November 23, 2009. 

The trial of over 100 suspects behind the massacre is due to conclude this year, but as of August 31, 2019—the final date CPJ counted convictions for this year’s index—no verdict had been announced. Ampatuan clan patriarch and former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., whom prosecutors said was the mastermind behind the attack, died in detention in July 2015.

Somalia was the worst country for the 5th year in a row in a ranking based on deaths as a percentage of each country’s population – 25 unsolved killings in a country of 15 million people. Other countries making up the 13 worst were South Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Nigeria, and India.