A New York-based press freedom group will use a $100,000 (P4.416 million) grant to boost its campaign against impunity against journalists, especially in the Philippines and Russia.
The Committee to Protect Journalists made the statement after receiving a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in support of CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity (GCAI).
"This year, with support from Knight, we will continue to demand accountability in Russia and the Philippines. At the same time, we are intensifying our efforts to combat injustice in other places around the world where the journalists are routinely killed, from Pakistan to Mexico. We do this because we are outraged to see our colleagues killed for their work. But we also believe that violent forces must be challenged in their efforts to censor and control the news," CPJ executive director Joel Simon said in a statement posted on the CPJ website.
Simon noted the CPJ campaign against impunity enters its third year in 2011, having achieved "significant successes" including high-level commitment to prosecute the killers of journalists in the Philippines and Russia.
"Our goal in the year ahead is to turn those commitments into results," he said.
The CPJ's GCAI began as a pilot project, focusing on the Philippines and Russia where the killers of journalists routinely go free.
Simon said that while violence against the press is common to both Russia and the Philippines, the countries have little else in common.
"The Philippines features a rollicking media but a weak central government. In Russia, with some notable exceptions, the press is toothless and the government itself exerts powerful influence over all aspects of society. The Philippines, highly dependent on international aid, is vulnerable to international pressure. Russia bristles at any outside criticism of what it views at its internal affairs," he noted.
"It's precisely because they are so different that we wanted to test whether systematic and focused advocacy could make a difference in both places. While violence against journalist has continued in Russia and the Philippines, government responses in both nations have changed as a result of our engagement," he added.
Simon said that in the Philippines, government officials used to routinely challenge the CPJ's research and decry as "an exaggeration" the organization's description of the country as one of the world's most dangerous [place] for the media.
But when CPJ visited Manila soon after President Benigno Aquino III took office last year, it found the government open and highly receptive to its concerns.
"No one denied the importance of the impunity issue or sought to challenge our research. Instead, they met with our delegation and pledged to pursue justice not only in the Maguindanao massacre but in the other media killings that preceded it," he said.
Media killings
In November 2009, some 32 journalists and media workers were slaughtered in what is now known as the Maguindanao massacre.
On Monday, Gerry Ortega, a hard-hitting broadcaster in Palawan, was gunned down in Puerto Princesa City. Five men have been charged for the killing, including the alleged gunman.
A total of 142 journalists have been killed since Philippine democracy was won back in 1986.
Likewise in Russia, where CPJ sent delegations the last three years, authorities were highly receptive to the group's concerns.
"While we welcome such commitments as a positive sign, we obviously remain skeptical of the government's intention in both places. The question in the year ahead is how to turn these commitments into concrete action--meaning arrests, prosecutions, and convictions," he said.
Impunity index
In designing the GCAI, CPJ also developed a statistical tool for measuring progress: the Impunity Index.
Using detailed date compiled by CPJ staff, the index calculates the number of unsolved killings as a percentage of a country's population.
"When we released our 2010 Index, the Philippines ranked third, with 55 unsolved killings, and Russia ranked eighth, with 18," Simon said.
"The only way for a country to reduce its ranking is to solve these crimes. We hope that Russia and Philippines will decline in their ranking when our next index is released later this year. We are encouraged that suspects in the latest murder in the Philippines, which took place earlier this week, were quickly apprehended," he added. (report from LBG/RSJ, GMANews.TV)
