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Journalists in South Asia face “severe risks” amid escalating
violence in the region, the New York City-based Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) said in a report released in the Philippines
Monday.
Attacks on media workers in Sri Lanka and
Pakistan have increased and four other countries in the
region—Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and India—also qualified
for the CPJ’s “impunity index.”
The index, launched last year, lists countries
where journalists are routinely killed or attacked and where
governments have failed to solve the crimes.
“South Asian journalists face particularly
severe risks. The region’s nations make up nearly half of CPJ’s
index,” according to the report, released in Manila to mark the
fourth anniversary of the murder of Marlene Esperat, a Filipino
journalist killed for reporting on official corruption.
Iraq, Sierra Leone and Somalia topped the list
for the second year running, with a total of 103 journalists killed
since 1999.
But the CPJ said there had been a surge of
violence in Sri Lanka, including the fatal stabbing of a television
cameraman, as the government battles the separatist Tamil Tiger
rebels.
Journalists in Pakistan meanwhile are under
threat from militant and criminal religious organizations, while
political groups frequently attack media workers in Nepal, it said.
“We’re distressed to see justice worsen in
places such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s
executive director. “Our findings indicate that the failure to
solve journalists’ murders perpetuates further violence against
the press.”
Filipino journalists
In the Philippines, meanwhile, at least
two-dozen cases have gone unsolved the past decade, and witnesses
have also been threatened and attacked. The country is considered
among most dangerous peacetime places for the working press.
“We call on the Philippine government to take
the hard steps needed to gain convictions,” said Elisabeth
Witchell, CPJ’s campaign coordinator, adding that government
should assign special prosecutors and move trials in safer venues.
-- AFP
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