The International Day to End Impunity is a campaign to highlight the necessity of protecting press freedom around the world, says Padraig Reidy

This article was originally published at Comment is Free

On 23 November 2011, Azerbaijani writer Rafiq Tagi died. Tagi had been a consistent critic of conservative Islam and of the regime in neighbouring Iran. His opinions had earned him a conviction for inciting hatred and a death sentence from Iranian Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani. He survived prison, but was a marked man. He met his end in hospital, four days after being stabbed by an as yet unidentified killer. The son of Lankarani praised Tagi’s killer, congratulating him for standing up for Islam and thwarting “Zionism”.

Rafiq’s case in itself would be enough to make 23 November a day of remembrance for journalists. But the date echoes an even grimmer attack on the free press. In 2009, 32 journalists and media workers were slaughtered in the Philippines, in what is known as the Ampatuan massacre. The journalists were ambushed on their way to cover the filing of the candidacy of a local politician, Esmael Mangudadatu, for upcoming elections. Mangudadatu had feared he would be attacked and hoped the presence of the media would protect him. As yet, no one has been convicted of the single greatest slaughter of media workers in history.

Artist Bob and Roberta Smith’s painting to mark International Day to End Impunity

This is why 23 November has been declared International Day To End Impunity. Started in 2011, the event highlights the chilling fact that from Gaza to Guyana, people who decide to use the most direct form of censorship — physical attacks on journalists, activists and artists, can reasonably expect to get away with it. Free speech suffers while the censor goes free.

This year, the campaign to highlight this issue has chosen 23 figures from around the world who have faced intimidation, imprisonment and attacks. A small sample of that sample: Indian cartoonist Aseem Trivedi faces sedition charges for a drawing suggesting some Indian politicians are corrupt. Belarusian journalist and activist Iryna Khalip faced years of intimidation for criticising the human rights record of Europe’s last dictatorship. She is now barred from leaving her country and under constant police surveillance. Mexican investigative reporter Lydia Cacho has been forced to flee her country after her work uncovering sex trafficking earned her death threats. Bahraini human rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja has been shot with a tear gas canister and has seen 12 separate criminal cases brought against her this year – all for daring to call for democracy in the Gulf kingdom.

And then there is Ai Weiwei. Amid all the Gangnam and the glamour of the world’s most famous living artist, it is easy to forget that this is a man who has faced beatings and house arrest merely for encouraging his fellow Chinese citizens to question the authority of the Communist party.

Ai’s influence has led to new alliances between artists and activists, earlier this week, Anish Kapoor pulled together his own Gangnam-style pastiche to highlight censorship, and to mark International Day to End Impunity, another British artist, Bob and Roberta Smith, has joined with Index on Censorship to create an exclusive painting displaying the names of the 23 figureheads of the anti-impunity campaign.

But concern for free speech spreads beyond artists and activists. As the web has given us all the power to publish and broadcast, in the UK we have seen ordinary people punished for saying the “wrong” thing on Facebook and Twitter: Matthew Woods, Azhar Ahmed and Paul Chambers are just some of the people who have found themselves at the sharp end of censorious laws. Abstract arguments about free speech have a sudden urgency when we realise any one of us could find ourselves on trial for a strongly expressed opinion or a badly phrased joke. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is soon to publish interim guidelines and a public consultation on social media prosecutions, and we can only hope free speech is paramount in its concerns.

Meanwhile, the findings of the Leveson Inquiry, due to be released next week, may well have damaging implications for the UK’s free press, punishing good journalists as well as those who fall short.

As we prepare for vigorous debates about the press and the online world, it’s worth remembering that free speech is hard won and all too easily lost.

Padraig Reidy is news editor at Index. He tweets at @mepadraigreidy

PLUS watch Bob And Roberta Smith and Index on Censorship’s Julia Farrington talk about International Day To End Impunity

The post Attacks on journalists and activists must stop appeared first on Index on Censorship.

Freedom of Expression Organisations Call for Justice on International Day to End Impunity

London, November 23, 2011

Today Index on Censorship, Article 19, the Committee to Protect Journalists and English PEN  join dozens of freedom of expression organisations around the world to mark the inaugural International Day to End Impunity.

In the past 10 years, more than 500 journalists have been killed. In nine out of 10 cases, the murderers have gone free. Many others targeted for exercising their right to freedom of expression — artists, writers, musicians, activists — join their ranks.

On this day two years ago the single deadliest event for the media took place when 30 journalists and two support workers were brutally killed in Ampatuan, Maguindanao province, The Philippines. The journalists were part of a convoy accompanying supporters of a local politician filing candidacy papers for provincial governor. In total the “Maguindanao Massacre” as it has come to be known, claimed 58 victims. Not one of more than a hundred individuals suspected of involvement in the atrocity has been convicted yet.

We join those in the Philippines not only in honouring their slain colleagues, friends and family members, but demanding justice for them and hundreds more in Russia, Belarus, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Colombia, Iraq and Somalia and other countries where killings of journalists and free expression activists have repeatedly gone unpunished. Above all we demand an end to the cycle violence and impunity.

This year alone at least 17 journalists were murdered for their work. These include Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad, whose body was found May 31 showing signs of torture. They include Mexican journalist and social media activist Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro Macías, whose killers left a computer keyboard and a note with the journalist’s body saying she had been killed for writing on social media websites. These heinous acts not only silence the messenger, but are intended to intimidate all others from bringing news and sharing critical voices with the public.

We call on governments around the world to investigate and prosecute these crimes and bring an end to impunity.

Article 19                                                        English PEN

Committee to Protect Journalists                  Index on Censorship

Take Action: Write a letter demanding justice for:

1 November: Mohammad Ismail
2 November: José Bladimir Antuna Garcían
3 November: Abdul Razzak Johra
4 November: Laurent Bisset
5 November: Carlos Alberto Guajardo Romero
6 November: Wadallah Sarhan
7 November: Ahmed Hussein al-Maliki
8 November: Francisco Castro Menco
9 November: Dilip Mohapatra
10 November: Misael Tamayo Hernández
11 November: Johanne Sutton, Pierre Billaud and Volker Handloik
12 November: Gene Boyd Lumawag
13 November: José Armando Rodríguez Carreón
14 November: Seif Yehia and Ibraheem Sadoon
15 November: Fadia Mohammed Abid
16 November: Olga Kotovskaya
17 November: Meher-un-Nisa
18 November: Tara Singh Hayer
19 November: Eenadu-TV staff
20 November: Namik Taranci
21 November: Ram Chander Chaterpatti
22 November: Raad Jaafar Hamadi
23 November: Ampatuan massacre victims

23 November marks the anniversary of the 2009 Ampatuan massacre, in which 34 journalists were murdered in an election-related killing in the Philippines, making it the single deadliest incident for journalists in recent history.

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