The Daily Star - Press watchdog: State complicit in murder - June 02, 2011

By Patrick Galey

The Daily Star BEIRUT: The government is complicit in the murders of journalists Samir Kassir and Jibran Tueni by not investigating their killings, a leading press freedom watchdog has said. Maria Salazer Ferro, coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) Impunity Campaign and Journalist Assistance Program, said that by failing to probe the assassinations of journalists, the government was sending the wrong message to those seeking to silence the press. “By not investigating murders of journalists, authorities are encouraging the murders of journalists. They are telling perpetrators: ‘Go ahead, shut them up because we don’t care.’ [Governments] are basically encouraging silencing the press by not investigating,” Ferro told The Daily Star. “That can be applied to Lebanon. Lack of investigation is as grave as encouraging violence against journalists and if you don’t investigate these killings you are perpetuating this idea that the press can be silenced with violence and murder.” Ferro was speaking on the sidelines of Wednesday’s launch of CPJ’s 2011 Impunity Index, which detailed the worst countries in terms of unsolved murders of press members. Iraq topped the list, with 92 murders uninvestigated over the past decade. Ferro said it was fitting that CPJ chose Lebanon as place to release its latest report, given the country’s turbulent recent history and ongoing regional turmoil. “It’s important that the report is launched in Lebanon because it also has a history of impunity. The two killings [of Kassir and Tueni] are representative of a more global problem in that like most journalists, they were threatened before they were murdered,” she said. “They were local reporters, not foreigners. Like most of the journalists who have been murdered, they were reporting on politics and/or armed conflict and this is the global trend that we see. “Impunity in the murders of journalists becomes a key area of a country’s freedom of expression. It’s also because Lebanon is one of those countries that have a long-standing problem of impunity in journalists’ murders,” Ferro added. Kassir and Tueni were both murdered in 2005 during the wave of assassinations experienced by Lebanon up until 2007. Both were vocal critics of Syrian influence in Lebanon, although Damascus has denied involvement in their deaths. Their murders are being investigated by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which has yet to finalize an indictment over the murder for which the body was established, that of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. CPJ plans to take its findings to administrations in some of the worst offending countries, such as India, Mexico and The Philippines. The report is the fourth of its kind and CPJ researchers have already met with officials in Pakistan and Russia. The latter agreed to open investigations into journalists’ deaths, as evidenced by the recent arrest of a suspect in the case of murdered reporter Anna Politskaya. The region’s ongoing popular uprisings, solidified by an unprecedented boom in social media reportage, present authorities with an ideal opportunity to end impunity against journalists and heighten freedom of expression in Arab countries, according to Ferro. “It’s important for these inspiring democracies to be aware and learn from the mistakes of other democracies. Be aware of issues such as the protection of press freedom and that is why it’s important to put the word out in the region right now,” she said. The Arab Spring has seen brutal crackdowns against demonstrators across the region, most recently in Syria, as well as the detention and alleged murder of dozens of journalists by regimes attempting to keep a lid on media coverage of domestic unrest. Ferro said that murders of journalists demonstrated a systemic shortage of transparency and accountability. “Most of these countries are more or less functioning democracies and that’s why murders become a problem. In non-functioning countries, there are less subtle forms of censorship. In these democracies, you see that a lot of these [murdered] journalists were doing the job that the authorities should have been doing. Many were covering politics and corruption and that is why they were killed,” she said. Ferro also acknowledged the dangerous but important role citizen journalists were playing in broadcasting protest movements to global audiences. “These people who are reporting on their own without the necessary protection or institutional media knowledge do create risks. It also puts people without knowledge of the situation in the frontline. It’s Catch 22. People are putting their lives on the line but it’s important for them to get information out,” she added.