Statement No: 189
Tomorrow November the second is the “International day to end impunity for crimes against journalists”. The United Nations General Assembly recognized the second day of November as the international day to end impunity against journalists in 2013, and this day has been commemorated in the most countries of the world ever since.
Based on the estimates by UNISCO, Afghanistan with the loss of thirteen journalists and media workers along Mexico, have ranked at the top of countries with the highest number of journalist and media worker mortalities.
Based on this very estimates, 930 journalists and media workers have been killed during the past eleven years, and only 10% of these killings’ perpetrators have been put on trial.
In post-Taliban Afghanistan, more than 70 journalists and media workers have lost their lives and based on the estimates published by legal and justice agencies, only nine of these cases have been investigated completely.
Afghanistan’s National Journalists Union (ANJU) believes that in the previous year, the government has paid more attention to this issue.
A year ago, the “Joint Committee of Media and the Government” was established which has been chaired by the second VP, and senior officials of related government agencies and the representatives of journalist unions are members of this committee. The investigation of violence cases against journalists in the last fifteen years is among the priorities of the committee.
According to the committee’s reviews, from roughly 1000 cases of violence against journalists and media workers, 172 cases have been deemed investigable and from which the prosecution of 40 cases has been practically started, including journalists and media workers’ murder cases.
ANJU while welcoming the functions of the joint committee of media and government, stresses on its commitment to prosecute all the violence cases against journalists and media workers, and asks national as well as international agencies in support of journalists and media workers to assist Afghan journalists in their quest for these goals with extensive advocacy.
We at the same time expect the Afghan government to fulfill its obligations in this regard and prosecute the perpetrators of the violence cases against journalists with utmost seriousness.
