China didn't make the cut for our 10 most censored countries. While the Chinese Communist Party's censorship apparatus is notorious, journalists and Internet users work hard to overcome the restrictions. Nations like Eritrea and North Korea lack that dynamism.

CPJ's María Salazar-Ferro names the 12 countries where journalists are murdered regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. Where are leaders failing to uphold the law? Where are conditions getting better? And where is free expression in danger? (4:46)

Read CPJ's 2012 Impunity Index. And visit our Global Campaign Against Impunity and see how you can help.

CPJ’s 2012 Impunity Index spotlights countries
where journalists are slain and killers go free

On February 11, two Bangladeshi television journalists, Meherun Runi and her husband Golam Mustofa Sarowar, were murdered in their Dhaka home. Their 5-year-old son found their bodies. No arrests have yet been made and no motive has been publicly disclosed, although police claim they know why the couple was killed. Journalists have plenty of reason to be skeptical, and they staged a nationwide strike today to call attention to the case.

New York, February 13, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the death of two TV journalists in Dhaka and calls on Bangladeshi authorities to act speedily to bring the perpetrators to justice.

New York, November 10, 2011--A Bangladeshi editor was rearrested on the same day he was released on bail, as he was leaving the gate of the prison, news reports said. 

Police detained Ekramul Haque, editor of Sheershanews website and Sheersha Kagoj weekly, on extortion charges on July 31. On October 25, the High Court in the country's capital, Dhaka, granted the journalist bail, and he was released on November 1. But he was arrested again at the gate of the jail as he was leaving, news website bdnews24 reported. 

A telephone caller claiming to represent a wanted criminal overseas threatened to kill a senior crime reporter for writing about the drug trade, local news reports and a human rights advocate said. 

New York, August 1, 2011--Police in Bangladesh should either charge or release a news editor arrested Sunday, whose detention may be linked to his writing on government corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

CPJ’s 2011 Impunity Index spotlights countries
where journalists are slain and killers go free

In the last decade, the growth of print and electronic media and a new generation of journalists have changed the face of the media in Bangladesh. But there is a long way to go until there is true press freedom. Politicians, criminals, and businessman exert undue influence, and the industry itself lacks the professionalism to withstand it.