“I am like a lone flame of a candle in a big dark room. I can’t light the whole room but I light a small corner, and that corner is worth fighting for,” Ortega’s daughter, Michaella Ortega, recalled her father saying.
Ortega was gunned down in 2011 outside a thrift store in Palawan, shortly after his morning broadcast – a platform he used to report on corruption within the government of now former Palawan provincial governor Joel Reyes.
More than 13 years later, Reyes – the alleged mastermind behind Ortega’s murder – remains at large, despite an outstanding arrest warrant against him. A gunman was sentenced to life in prison in 2013.
In March, CPJ and media freedom groups Free Press Unlimited and Reporters Without Borders met with Philippine authorities in the capital Manila to provide new information about where Reyes may be hiding. Philippine national police and the justice department pledged to take action.
Ortega’s murder is widely seen as emblematic of the entrenched impunity in the Southeast Asian country, where since 1992, 96 journalists have been killed in connection with their work.
The Philippines has been consistently listed as one of the world’s worst offenders on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which ranks countries where killers of journalists go free.
CPJ spoke with Michaella and her mother, Patria Ortega, about their hopes that the family’s fight for justice could help end this impunity, the power of journalism, and the failure to solve press killings in the Philippines. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The case has dragged on for 13 years. Why hasn’t full justice been served?
Patria: I don’t know if it’s the system, or the people inside the system. In our case, we have all the evidence. If the case doesn’t go anywhere, or we lose, then it’s a signal to the people.
Michaella: A lot of international organizations have rightfully assessed that the Gerry Ortega case is emblematic of the level of impunity in the Philippines. This is a very strong case, a lot of public interest, public pressure. Civil society organizations across sectors – environmentalists, human rights, journalists – have pushed for accountability and yet, it’s moving at a snail’s pace. It really shows you the deeply entrenched corruption.
Dad was a loud voice. A voice that held corrupt practices to account, a voice that was speaking truth to power – and then that voice was snuffed out. There was no way that the system could protect these voices.
This is almost the same copy-and-paste case of so many other cases in the Philippines, with strong voices of dissent – journalists, activists, priests, lawyers, anyone who says anything to someone in power – then the [perpetrators] get away with it.
He highlighted a number of issues through his journalism. Are they still relevant today?
Michaella: Very relevant. He was an anti-corruption advocate, he was also pro-environment, and then he did radio broadcast. He really wanted to make sure the government serves the people. It’s not only these issues are still relevant today, but that people like him are dwindling. These are the very voices that you need in times like this, but loud and brave voices are getting snuffed out. It’s very, very difficult to speak out anymore.
You said people like him are dwindling. What does that mean for local journalism?
Michaella: The media landscape is very different now. The killing of journalists, the injustice and impunity could continue to happen. It’s very difficult for us as people, as community to believe that anything can be better. It’s very difficult to convince people of that anymore. When dad was alive, he was the most popular radio commentator in Palawan. How’s that possible? It’s because, somehow, people were able to imagine a better world.
Ortega was threatened before he was killed, yet he continued with his radio broadcast.
Patria: He would say that if they kill you, they kill you. He was banking on his spirituality.
Michaella: He felt like it was his duty to serve the people.
What has it been like fighting for justice for 13 years?
Michaella: When we started out – in the first week after dad was killed – we were having conversations of how do we define what justice looks like. We were not into the thing that my dad was doing. I had just graduated from college, my mom was busy with her [veterinary] clinic – it was a different life that we were pulled into. Suddenly we were meeting lawyers, investigators, people from the government and we were in front of cameras. It was a weird thing when we had just lost someone. Nobody trained for us for this.
So as a way for us to regain some sense of agency, we were asking ourselves – how do we define justice? Why are we even doing this? Why are we showing up?
One of the ways that we have justified it to ourselves is that why we kept showing up is because of justice – obviously to see the conviction of the mastermind – but more importantly, it doesn’t stop there.
Real justice is when there’s enough of a change in the culture, in the system, that people like Gerry Ortega will survive, will thrive, and will have their voices heard.
Is this what keeps you going?
Patria: It’s a long fight. We have to start with the kids. I’m telling people, if there is only one person who talks about the evil of the society, most probably that person will die. But if there are more people [doing the same], then it’s going to be difficult to kill all of them.
Michaella: We show up hoping that it will have some effect. It becomes harder and harder each year – but definitely, if we can have some effect that someone like him would be protected, would not be shot, then we’ve shown that the system can exercise justice.
What do you want to see immediately?
Patria: I want the trial to proceed. I want the case to be done. A conviction.
Michaella: The thing we asked for is for it to go through trial. A fair trial. It has stopped because of technicalities and motions. [The alleged mastermind] escapes justice, becomes a fugitive, we can’t even have a trial. Here’s someone who clearly shows disrespect [to the judicial system].
What do you hope to see next now that new leads of the case have been given to the Philippine authorities?
Patria: I hope the government will act on it. When you don’t shine light on evil people, they will continue do their thing.
Michaella: We fight because we hope to be able to contribute to our community. We have fought precisely because of that kind of support from civil society that we’re not left behind to fend for ourselves. That’s the reason why we can continue to show up. We wouldn’t be able to fight if other people stopped showing up first.
Everyone continues to show up, continues to knock on doors, finding the next window [of opportunity for justice], that’s the major reason why we even have any kind of energy to continue do this.
It’s traumatizing, it’s difficult. We do want to move on with our lives. My dad wouldn’t have wanted us to have a life that’s defined by someone’s murder.
So [this fight] has to be bigger than that. It being an emblematic case, it being a case that may have some repercussions on the justice system or our culture, then it matters to show up.
]]>On March 12, armed men dressed in red and white shirts with Clarkhills Properties Corporation verbally barred Manabat and Quejada from entering an area under land dispute in Anunas village, Angeles City, in the northwest Pampanga province, according to multiple news reports.
The men later grabbed Manabat and Quejada’s belongings and threatened to shoot the journalists when they saw them filming a dispute between local residents and Clarkhills’ armed demolition team, according to reports.
Several demolitions have occurred in the disputed 73-hectare area, sparking violent encounters, Rappler reported. Manabat left the site and took refuge in a nearby house after the men made the shooting threat, according to a Rappler report.
Quejada was accosted, questioned, and held at gunpoint by the men before also taking refuge in a nearby home, according to news reports and a statement on the incident released by Angeles City Mayor Carmelo Lazatin Jr. Additionally, she was temporarily reported missing, reports said.
“Filipino authorities should leave no stone unturned in identifying and prosecuting those responsible for the harassment and shooting threat made against reporters Joann Manabat and Rowena Quejada,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s Senior Southeast Asia Representative. “This type of unchecked thuggery is precisely what makes the Philippines such a perilous place to be a reporter. It should stop under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s democratic rule.”
Several people suffered gunshot wounds in Tuesday’s melee and were taken to the local Rafael Lazatin Memorial Medical Center for treatment, news reports said. Both reporters safely left the area after the violence subsided, the reports said.
The Angeles City Police Department and Clarkhills Properties did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.
The local Commission on Human Rights indicated it would conduct a probe into the threats against Manabat and Quejada, news reports said.
]]>German Chancellor Olaf Scholz should make press freedom and specifically the case of murdered journalist Gerry Ortega, who exposed local corruption, a core element of discussions with President Marcos Jr., particularly given Germany’s special responsibility as co-chair of the Media Freedom Coalition, a grouping of 50 countries committed to promote press freedom at home and abroad.
The coalition – comprised of Free Press Unlimited (FPU), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) – met with Philippine authorities in Manila on February 29 and March 1 to provide new and actionable information that points to the location of former provincial governor Joel T. Reyes, who is the alleged mastermind of Ortega’s murder in 2011 but remains at large, despite an outstanding arrest warrant issued in 2023.
“An alleged mastermind in the murder of a journalist remains unjustifiably at large in the Philippines, despite an arrest warrant. This is a troubling signal that the free press is fair game,” the coalition said. “We urge Chancellor Scholz to ensure that the media’s role as a pillar of democracy that holds power to account is protected, and that justice is delivered specifically in the case of Gerry Ortega, when he holds talks with President Marcos Jr.”
Ortega, a radio and environmental journalist based on the island of Palawan in the Philippines, reported on corruption within the administration of ex-Palawan governor Reyes before he was murdered.
The three international organizations, who together form the ‘A Safer World for the Truth’ initiative, have investigated the Ortega case since 2020. Despite damning evidence implicating Reyes as the mastermind, the former governor has to this day continued to evade arrest and remains at large.
Ortega’s murder is emblematic of the entrenched impunity in media killings in the Philippines. Since 1992, 96 journalists have been murdered in connection with their work in the Southeast Asian country, according to CPJ’s data.
The Philippines ranked eighth on CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index and 132nd on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index last year.
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Spokespeople are available for interviews in English:
Free Press Unlimited (Amsterdam): Jos Bartman bartman@freepressunlimited.org
Committee to Protect Journalists (Frankfurt/New York): Beh Lih Yi, lbeh@cpj.org; press@cpj.org
Reporters Without Borders (Taipei/Paris): Aleksandra Bielakowska, abielakowska@rsf.org
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A Safer World For The Truth is a collaboration between Free Press Unlimited (FPU), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). We investigate murders through a series of cold case investigations to push for justice on the national level, and we organize the People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists to put a spotlight on states’ obligation to protect journalists and to investigate all attacks against them. To learn more about the project, visit our website https://www.saferworldforthetruth.com/.
Please see A Safer World for the Truth report about Gerry Ortega’s case published in 2022.
About the partners:
Free Press Unlimited (FPU): Free Press Unlimited is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Free Press Unlimited helps local journalists in conflict areas to provide their audience with independent news and reliable information. The information that people need to survive and give shape to their own future. – freepressunlimited.org
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ): The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Based in New York, we defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal. – cpj.org
Reporters Without Borders – known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF) – is an international non-profit organisation at the forefront of the defence and promotion of freedom of information. RSF acts globally for the freedom, pluralism, and independence of journalism and defends those who embody those ideals. Recognised as a public interest organisation in France since 1995, RSF has consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the International Organisation of the Francophonie (OIF). Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Paris, RSF has 13 country sections and bureaus, including a bureau in Taipei and section in Berlin, and a network of correspondents in more than 130 countries.
]]>Representatives from Free Press Unlimited (FPU), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) met with the DoJ’s Assistant Secretary Jose Dominic F. Clavano IV on Thursday in the capital, Manila, to discuss the slow progress in the case and express hope that the Philippine judicial system would finally bring justice to Ortega’s family 13 years after his murder.
The coalition also met with PNP Chief Benjamin Acorda Jr. on Friday on the same matter.
The DoJ pledged to deal with the matter with urgency while the PNP chief vowed to implement the warrant of arrest against the alleged mastermind.
Before he was murdered in 2011, Ortega reported on corruption within the administration of the former governor of Palawan province Joel T. Reyes. The three international organizations have investigated the case since 2020. Despite damning evidence implicating Reyes as the mastermind, the former governor has continued to evade arrest and remains at large.
During the meeting with the DoJ, the coalition offered information—gathered during its ongoing independent investigation of the case—that points to the location where the former governor is hiding. The coalition urged the DoJ, PNP, and other law enforcement agencies to act upon this significant piece of new information to arrest Reyes, who is facing a non-bailable charge of murder.
The coalition also expressed concerns about Reyes’ latest attempt to transfer the trial to Quezon City regional trial court, which could hamper a prompt trial. The coalition called on the Philippine government to exhaust all legal remedies to effect the immediate arrest of Reyes and compel him to face trial before the proper courts for the murder of Ortega.
The mission was supported by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
Jos Bartman, lead investigator, Free Press Unlimited (FPU), states:
“We welcome the Philippine authorities’ commitment to ensure justice is delivered in the case of Gerry Ortega. Achieving justice in the case of Gerry Ortega could set an example around the globe and show that prosecuting masterminds of journalists’ murder is not impossible.“
Beh Lih Yi, Asia Program Coordinator, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), states:
“Gerry Ortega is not forgotten. His case is emblematic of the entrenched impunity when it comes to journalist killings in the Philippines. Until the real mastermind is brought to justice, his case will continue to create a chilling effect on the media in the country.”
Cédric Alviani, Asia-Pacific Bureau Director, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), states:
“The information we have given to the Department of Justice and the Philippine police provides all the keys to finding and arresting Joel T. Reyes, the alleged mastermind of the murder of Gerry Ortega. It is now the responsibility of the country’s authorities to do everything possible to arrest the former governor and bring justice to the journalist’s relatives, 13 years after this shocking crime.”
Ronalyn Olea, secretary general, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), states:
“We thank the international community for their solidarity and for their persistent efforts in pushing for justice for our slain Filipino colleagues. We hope that the Philippine government steps up its efforts in arresting Joel T. Reyes, resolving other cases of media killings, and addressing impunity.”
For more details, please see A Safer World for the Truth report about Gerry Ortega’s case published in 2022.
About the Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
Note for editors:
Spokespeople are available for interviews in English and Dutch:
Jos Bartman, lead investigator, Free Press Unlimited (FPU); bartman@freepressunlimited.org
Aleksandra Bielakowska, Asia-Pacific Bureau Advocacy Manager, Reporters Without Borders (RSF); abielakowska@rsf.org
Beh Lih Yi, Asia Program Coordinator, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ); lbeh@cpj.org
Ronalyn V. Olea, Secretary General, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines; secretariat@nujp.org
]]>On Sunday morning, an assailant entered Jumalon’s home-based radio station pretending to be a listener and shot him twice during his live broadcast on Facebook in the city of Calamba, on the southern island of Mindanao, according to multiple news reports. The attacker stole Jumalon’s gold necklace before escaping on a motorcycle driven by a waiting accomplice, those sources said.
Sunday’s livestream on 94.7 Gold Mega Calamba FM, a local Visayan-language station, was removed from Facebook but video clips circulating online show Jumalon pausing and looking away from the camera before two apparent gunshots are heard, the U.S. news channel CNN reported. The journalist was declared dead on arrival at a local hospital, news reports said.
“The wanton killing of radio reporter Juan Jumalon shows that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s government isn’t doing enough to protect the press,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Talk is not equivalent to action. Until Marcos Jr.’s government shows it is serious about ending impunity for such killings, journalists will continue to be murdered at a horrific rate in the Philippines.”
Marcos Jr. addressed Jumalon’s killing in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, “Attacks on journalists will not be tolerated in our democracy, and those who threaten the freedom of the press will face the full consequences of their actions.”
Jumalon is the fourth journalist to be killed since Marcos Jr. took power in June 2022.
Jumalon, also known as DJ Johnny Walker, hosted a regular call-in program on 94.7 Gold Mega Calamba FM, which discussed everything from neighborhood issues to relationships, those sources said.
Captain Diore Libre Ragonio, the officer-in-charge at Calamba Municipal Police Station, told a news conference that authorities had identified at least three suspects and were investigating motives related to the journalist’s work, as well as personal matters.
In a statement, Paul Gutierrez, executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, a state agency that includes the police and was set up in 2016 to resolve cases of violence against media workers, described the incident as a “dastardly attack.” He called for the police to immediately activate a special investigation task group to identify and arrest the suspects.
CPJ has documented how the Marco’s Jr.’s government has been less overtly antagonistic towards the media than the administration of his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, but that journalists still await substantive action to improve press safety in the country.
The Philippines ranked eighth on CPJ’s 2023 Impunity Index, which spotlights countries worldwide where journalists are slain and their killers go free.
Editor’s note: This text has been updated to correct the location of Calamba in the second paragraph.
]]>Click the images for more details about these unsolved cases. (Photo grid by Geoff McGhee)
Crisis-hit Haiti has emerged as one of the countries where murderers of journalists are most likely to go free, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2023 Global Impunity Index has found. A devastating combination of gang violence, chronic poverty, political instability, and a dysfunctional judiciary are behind the Caribbean country’s first inclusion on CPJ’s annual list of nations where killers get away with murder.
Haiti now ranks as the world’s third-worst impunity offender, behind Syria and Somalia respectively. Somalia, along with Iraq, Mexico, the Philippines, Pakistan, and India, have been on the index every year since its inception. Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Brazil also have been there for years – a sobering reminder of the persistent and pernicious nature of impunity.
The reasons for these countries’ failure to prosecute journalists’ killers range from conflict to corruption, insurgency to inadequate law enforcement, and lack of political interest in punishing those willing to kill independent journalists. These states include democracies and autocracies, nations in turmoil and those with stable governments. Some are emerging from years of war, but a slowdown of hostilities has not ended their persecution of journalists. And as impunity becomes entrenched, it signals an indifference likely to embolden future killers and shrink independent reporting as alarmed journalists either flee their countries, dial back on their reporting, or leave the profession entirely.
This year’s index documents 261 journalists murdered in connection with their work between September 1, 2013 – the year the United Nations declared November 2 as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists – and August 31, 2023. It finds that during this 10-year period, no-one has been held to account in 204 – more than 78% – of these cases.
(Journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas war that began on October 7 are not included here because their deaths fall outside of the 10-year index period.)
A 78% impunity rate is a slight improvement on the 90% rate CPJ recorded a decade ago. But it should not be seen as reason for optimism. Impunity remains rampant and the stark reality is that nearly four out of every five killers of journalists are still getting away with murder.
Overall, CPJ has recorded the murders of 956 journalists in connection with their work since it began tracking them in 1992. A total of 757 – more than 79%– have gone wholly unprosecuted.
CPJ’s impunity index includes countries with at least five unsolved murders during a 10-year span. Only cases involving full impunity are listed; those where some have been convicted, but other suspects remain free – partial impunity – are not. Each country’s ranking is calculated as a proportion of their population size, meaning more populous countries like Mexico and India are lower on the list, in spite of having a higher number of journalist murders.
But the pernicious effects of impunity extend beyond the countries that have become fixtures on CPJ’s annual index. Unpunished murders have an intimidating effect on local journalists everywhere, corroding press freedom and shrinking public-interest reporting.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian journalists interviewed by CPJ for the “Deadly Pattern” report published earlier this year said their coverage had been undermined by escalating fears for their safety after the Israel Defense Forces fatally shot Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022. CPJ’s investigation found that no-one had been held accountable for the deaths of 20 journalists by Israeli military fire in 22 years. “The impunity in these cases has severely undermined the freedom of the press, leaving the rights of journalists in precarity,” noted the report. (Israel is not listed in the impunity index because fewer than five journalists killed during the index period are classified as having been targeted for murder.)
In several countries in the European Union, typically considered the safest places for journalists, press freedom has come under increasing pressure, with journalist murders remaining unsolved in Malta, Slovakia, Greece, and the Netherlands.
In Malta and Slovakia, full justice in the killings of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ján Kuciak is yet to be achieved. Greece has yet to hold anyone accountable for the 2010 killing of Sokratis Giolias, with a recent report by “ A Safer World for the Truth” – a collaboration of rights groups that includes CPJ – finding gaps in authorities’ investigations into the murder of Giolias and the similar killing of Giorgos Karaivaz 11 years later.
In the Netherlands, nine suspects are awaiting trial for the fatal shooting of Dutch reporter Peter R. de Vries as he left a TV studio in 2021. While it remains unclear whether De Vries and Karaivaz were targeted because of their work, colleagues in Greece and Holland have told CPJ their deaths have left lingering insecurity and self-censorship in the media community. De Vries’ death had “a chilling effect on journalists,” Dutch crime reporter Paul Vugts – the Netherlands’ first journalist to receive full police protection because of work-related death threats – told CPJ.
In countries considered less safe for journalists, violent retaliation for their coverage also continues.
In the central African nation of Cameroon, the mutilated corpse of journalist Martinez Zogo was found on January 22, 2023. At least one other journalist with ties to Zogo, Jean-Jacques Ola Bebe, was found dead 12 days later. Several journalists warned by Zogo that they too were on a hit list have fled the country; others opted for self-censorship. “The killing, physical attacks, abduction, torture, and harassment of journalists by Cameroonian police, intelligence agencies, military, and non-state actors continue to have a severe chilling effect [on the media],” noted a July report submitted to the United Nations by a group that included CPJ.
Since 1992, full justice has only been achieved for 47 murdered journalists – fewer than 5%. CPJ’s data shows that factors like international pressure, universal jurisdiction, and changes in government can play instrumental roles in securing that punishment.
One landmark case: Peruvian journalist Hugo Bustíos Saavedra. Bustios was killed in an army ambush on November 24, 1988, while covering the conflict between government forces and Shining Path guerrillas. It took almost 35 years for a Peruvian criminal court to sentence Daniel Urresti Elera, then the army’s intelligence chief in the zone where Bustios was killed, to 12 years in prison for his part in the killing. (Explore a timeline of the Bustios case here.)
Urresti’s conviction resulted from a combination of changing internal politics in Peruvian leadership, the re-opening of investigations into human rights cases after Peru’s Supreme Court effectively struck down the 1995 amnesty law protecting military officers, and ongoing advocacy by rights groups – including CPJ – at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In the Central African Republic, the August death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian private mercenary group killed in a plane crash two months after ordering his troops to march on Moscow, has led to hopes that those with information about the 2018 murders of three Russian journalists might come forward, writes CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. The journalists, Orkhan Dzhemal, Kirill Radchenko and Aleksandr Rastorguyev, were shot dead three days after arriving in the country to investigate Wagner’s activities there.
Universal jurisdiction, which allows a country to prosecute crimes against humanity regardless of where they were committed, can also be an effective tool. Bai Lowe, accused of being a member of the “Junglers” death squad that killed Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara, is on trial in Germany – the first person accused of human rights violations during the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh to be tried outside Gambia.
International pressure is another factor that may prompt authorities to investigate unsolved killers – even if the probes don’t necessarily lead to prosecution. CPJ’s “Deadly Pattern report about journalists killed by the Israeli military found that authorities were more likely to investigate killings of journalists with foreign passports. “The degree to which Israel investigates, or claims to investigate, journalist killings appears to be related to external pressure,” noted the report.
The Bustios case may have offered a glimmer of hope. But it also underscores that the road to justice can be long and tortuous – and for the vast majority of murdered journalists, it never comes at all.
1) Syria
Fourteen journalists were murdered with full impunity in Syria during the 2023 index period. Ten died between 2013 and 2016, as the initial uprising against the Bashar al-Assad regime widened into a full-scale war involving regional and global powers and the militant Islamic State (IS) began seizing control of Syrian territory. IS is believed to have murdered eight of the 10 killed between 2013 and 2016. Fighting has eased since Assad regained control of most of the country, but Syrian media have been dealt a hard blow as numerous journalists fled into exile and military authorities continue to harass, threaten or detain journalists.
2) Somalia
The worst offender on the index for the last eight years, Somalia dropped below Syria in the 2023 index. This drop to second does not signal an improvement in Somalia’s impunity record, but instead arises from the method used to calculate the rankings: Three of the four journalists murdered in 2013 were killed before September 1 of that year, meaning they fall outside of this year’s index period. Most of the 11 journalists during the index period died between 2013 and 2018, believed to have been killed by Al-Shabaab, an insurgent group which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia. Somalia remains unstable amid a renewed offensive against Al-Shabaab. Covering the insurgent group remains a dangerous, even deadly, assignment. The media are severely hampered in their reporting as journalists continue to face arrests, threats, and harassment.
3) Haiti
Haiti’s entry into the index follows the unsolved murders of six journalists since 2019. Five were killed in 2022 and 2023, among the hundreds of Haitians killed by the criminal gangs that have taken over large parts of Haiti as the country struggles to deal with an economic crisis aggravated by a series of natural disasters and the political void following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Haitian journalists have also been kidnapped and forced to flee their homes amid fears that their work put them at greater risk than other civilians. (Read more about conditions in Haiti here.)
4) South Sudan
The five journalists murdered in South Sudan all died when unidentified gunmen ambushed an official convoy in Western Bahr al Ghazal state on January 25, 2015. South Sudan’s media have long been under pressure in a country plagued by civil war and human rights violations since gaining independence in 2011. CPJ has documented numerous instances of harassment, detention, jailing and the death of a war reporter in crossfire in recent years.
5) Afghanistan
The militant Islamic State has claimed responsibility for killing 13 of the 18 journalists murdered in Afghanistan in the last decade. Ten died in 2018 alone, nine of them in a double suicide bomb attack in Kabul on April 30 that year, and one shot dead the previous week in Kandahar. While the deadly targeting of reporters appears to have slowed since the Taliban returned to office in 2021, large numbers of journalists have fled the country and the group’s escalating repression forced has gutted the country’s once-vibrant media landscape.
6) Iraq
CPJ has not documented any journalists murdered for their work in Iraq since 2017. Fourteen of the 17 listed in CPJ’s database were killed in 2013 and 2015 amid a resurgence of sectarian violence. While the violence has eased, media restrictions and threats against journalists – especially in Iraqi Kurdistan – continue.
7) Mexico
Killings of journalists in Mexico have dropped from last year’s high, but the country remains one of the world’s most dangerous for journalists. Seventeen of the 23 journalists murdered during the index period are believed to have been killed by criminal fire. CPJ has found that the high levels of violence against journalists can be attributed in part to the failure of state and federal authorities to make the environment safer for reporters or even take crimes against the press seriously.
8) Philippines
The Philippines remains a dangerous place to work as a reporter, especially for radio journalists. While Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has adopted a more conciliatory approach toward the media since becoming president in June 2022, CPJ reported that a culture of self-censorship persists and Marcos’ change in tone has not yet been accompanied by substantive actions to undo the damage wrought to press freedom under the Rodrigo Duterte administration. Twenty journalists have been murdered in the Philippines since September 2013; three since Marcos took office.
9) Myanmar
The number of journalists murdered with impunity in Myanmar remains at five, with no new cases documented this year. The country was listed for the first time in 2022, the same year the country’s military junta jailed dozens of journalists and used broad anti-state laws to quash independent reporting in the wake of its coup in February 2021.
10) Brazil
Brazil is working to reestablish good relations with the media following Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s defeat of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2022, with the government introducing measures like an Observatory on Violence Against Journalists earlier this year. Brazil did not record any new journalist murders in 2023, but the killers – mostly believed to be criminal groups – of 11 journalists murdered in Brazil during the index period remain at large. The 2022 murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous issues expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon continue to underscore the dangers faced by environmental reporters in the region.
11) Pakistan
Pakistan, one of the countries that has appeared on the index every year since its inception, recorded eight journalists killed with impunity during this year’s index period. Four are believed to have been killed by criminals, two by political groups. CPJ has documented numerous press freedom violations in the country following the ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022.
12) India
India too has appeared on CPJ’s impunity index every year since 2008. The majority of the 19 murdered since September 2013 are believed to have been killed by criminals over reporting on topics ranging from environmental issues to local politics, but journalists are facing increasing pressure ahead of the country’s 2024 election. In addition to detentions, police raids and blocks of news websites, authorities are using a counterterrorism law against the media.
Arlene Getz is editorial director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Now based in New York, she has worked in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as a foreign correspondent, editor, and editorial executive for Reuters, CNN, and Newsweek. Follow her on LinkedIn.
CPJ’s Global Impunity Index calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population. For this index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between September 1, 2013, and August 31, 2023, and remain unsolved. Only those nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index. CPJ defines murder as the targeted killing of a journalist, whether premeditated or spontaneous, in direct reprisal for the journalist’s work. This index does not include cases of journalists killed in combat zones or while on dangerous assignments, such as coverage of protests that turn violent. Cases are considered unsolved when no convictions have been obtained, even if suspects have been identified and are in custody. Cases in which some but not all suspects have been convicted are classified as partial impunity. Cases in which the suspected perpetrators were killed during apprehension also are categorized as partial impunity. The index only tallies murders that have been carried out with complete impunity. It does not include those for which partial justice has been achieved. Population data from the World Bank’s 2022 World Development Indicators, viewed in October 2023, were used in calculating each country’s rating.
]]>The judgment comes after a legal battle lasting nearly five years. If they had lost the case, Ressa could have been jailed for up to 10 years, while Rappler would have faced a fine.
“This verdict underlines that it is possible for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to chart a different course to his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who waged a relentless campaign of media repression,” said the Hold The Line Coalition Steering Committee. “We hope this judgment signals a revival of judicial independence in the Philippines after the previous administration’s instrumentalization of the courts as a means to erode press freedom and discredit independent reporting,” the Hold the Line Coalition said.
Ressa and Rappler were charged in connection with an alleged failure to accurately report financial details on their tax return pertaining to an amount of approximately US$ 11,000. But they have already paid twice that amount in bail and travel bonds associated with the charge.
“As an immediate next step, we call on the government to abandon all remaining cases against Rappler and Ressa, and in doing so, put a long-overdue end to their persecution.”
In January, Ressa and Rappler were acquitted of four tax evasion cases before the Court of Tax Appeals in Manila in an emphatic victory.
While today’s judgment represents another reprieve, there is no doubt that being forced to maintain continuous legal defenses has been designed to debilitate Rappler and Ressa, who have faced a sustained campaign of legal persecution and online violence, with 23 individual cases against them opened by the government since 2018.
Rappler and Ressa have maintained their innocence and continue to fight three other cases, including Ressa’s 2020 conviction on a trumped-up charge of criminal cyber libel, currently in the final phase of appeal before the Supreme Court. In that case alone, Ressa faces a seven-year jail sentence.
In an historic precedent, Rappler was officially issued a shutdown order in June 2022, reinforcing an earlier decision to revoke the outlet’s license to operate. The order was the first of its kind for the issuing agency and for Philippine media. The threat of shutdown lingers.
The HTL Coalition calls on states committed to freedom of the press and democracy, on intergovernmental organizations, on international development agencies and media investors, and on international civil society groups to continue their defense of press freedom in the Philippines and urge President Marcos to revitalize the country’s commitment to a free press.
Contact #HTL Steering Committee Members for further details: Rebecca Vincent (rvincent@rsf.org); Julie Posetti (jposetti@icfj.org); and Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (gguillenkaiser@cpj.org).
Note: The #HTL Coalition comprises more than 80 organizations around the world. This statement is issued by the #HoldTheLine Steering Committee, but it does not necessarily reflect the position of all or any individual Coalition members or organizations.
]]>“It was a very traumatic week. Sleepless. Very stressful. We could not publish our statement, the first statement of Mohamed’s detention,” SJS secretary general Abdalle Ahmed Mumin told CPJ in an interview from the U.K., where he fled earlier this year after he was repeatedly arrested by Somali authorities. “Imagine someone attacking your team, detaining one of your team, and you’re not able to communicate to the international world because your website has been taken down.”
SJS found some relief when it connected with Qurium, a Sweden-based nonprofit that began hosting SJS’s website. But a week after the initial attack, another DDoS flood hit the website. This time, Qurium was able to protect SJS from going offline. Qurium’s analysis of these additional attacks also found that a U.S. company, RayoByte, had provided the tools used in the attack.
Sprious, which owns RayoByte, told Qurium in an email, which CPJ reviewed, that it had “removed the abusive user” from its network and added the SJS site to its “blacklist” to prevent it from being targeted further.
SJS isn’t the only news outlet that has suffered a DDoS attack using RayoByte’s services. News outlets from at least five other countries — Kosovo, Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, and Turkmenistan — have faced similar attacks over the last two years, according to Qurium’s analysis. These incidents provide a rare look at the mechanics of online censorship efforts and how private corporations can profit from them.
Sprious declined CPJ’s requests for an interview and did not directly answer a list of written questions. But in emailed statements to CPJ, Sprious said it was “deeply concerned” about reports that its services were “allegedly” used in DDoS attacks. “We firmly stand against any form of online harassment or harm, including cyber-attacks, especially when it concerns entities that play a crucial role in promoting press freedom and the safety of journalists,” it said.
Headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, RayoByte, formerly known as Blazing SEO, is one of many companies that sells clients access to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, unique numbers assigned to internet-connected devices, for “scraping,” a method for extracting large amounts of data from websites. RayoByte’s website lists a range of prices for access to IP addresses based on variables including type and speed.
One way to conduct scraping is through repeated requests to visit a site with different IP addresses. Journalists and researchers use scraping as a research technique, but when IP requests are directed quickly and en masse toward a specific site in order to overwhelm it and knock it offline, this constitutes a DDoS attack.
CPJ has documented DDoS attacks against outlets conducting critical journalism around the world. These cyberattacks also often take place alongside other threats to journalists’ safety and press freedom.
Qurium’s analysis shows that it blocked nearly 20,000 IP addresses from hitting the SJS website with millions of requests on August 18 and 19. The largest portion of the traffic (nearly 50%) came via RayoByte and its hosting partners, the analysis said. The second half of the traffic came through several other online channels, including virtual private networks (VPNs).
“We were very effective at mitigating the attack because within a few hours we realized we had seen this type of traffic before,” Qurium’s technical director Tord Lundström told CPJ. “We have met this [attacking] infrastructure in the past…this infrastructure is no joke.”
Similar DDoS attacks began almost immediately after Kosovo-based news site Nacionale began publishing in March 2022, covering local politics and social issues, co-founder Visar Arifaj told CPJ in a recent phone interview. “Our website would be down quite often. Because we were still fresh in the news market, it really had an impact for us to reach our audiences,” Arifaj said. “For us to be down a couple of hours during the day was a huge blow.”
Qurium began hosting and defending Nacionale in September 2022, and in March and April 2023 Qurium notified Sprious that attackers had been using its services against the outlet.
In emails from March, Qurium informed Sprious of attacks lasting “several hours non-stop.” One of the attacks “sourced” millions of web requests from IP addresses “publicly advertised by Rayobyte/BlazingSEO,” Qurium said. Sprious responded that it had “blacklisted” access to Nacionale’s website and it had barred the “user” responsible – which Sprious did not name — from accessing its services, but in April Qurium again tracked a DDoS attack against Nacionale involving RayoByte. In response to Qurium’s email about the April attack, Sprious said it had “discovered an issue” with its “security controls,” and had addressed it “to prevent further traffic.”
However, RayoByte-sourced internet traffic to Nacionale’s website did not stop and featured in DDoS attacks against the outlet in July and August, Lundström told CPJ. While Kosovo police arrested and prosecuted one man in connection with the cyberattacks and Qurium has successfully prevented the continued attacks from taking Nacionale offline, Lundström told CPJ that incoming traffic shows attackers continuing to harness IPs from a combination of proxy services, VPNs, and other sources.
Alongside the cyberattacks, Nacionale’s staff have been subjected to “constant” online harassment for their work and were recently physically attacked on the job, though those attackers have been arrested, Arifaj told CPJ. “This constant pressure, even when it doesn’t get to the journalists physically and in a direct manner, you can see that it does a lot for their burnout,” he added. “It does take a toll, mentally, on everyone.”
Since 2022, Qurium has additionally tracked DDoS attacks with IPs sourced from RayoByte against four other outlets: Peoples Gazette from Nigeria, Kloop from Kyrgyzstan, Bulatlat from the Philippines, and Turkmen.news, which reports on Turkmenistan from exile. The attacks on three of the four outlets, excluding Kloop, also involved traffic via VPNs.
In its statements to CPJ, Sprious said it investigates reports of DDoS attacks using its services and takes “appropriate actions with the end user that we believe is responsible” and “steps to mitigate the reported issues, including, but not limited to, blacklisting associated domains and working diligently to remove abusive users.” The statements did not respond directly to CPJ’s requests for details of the customers responsible for these attacks and how the company responded in each case.
Lundström told CPJ that Sprious has yet to respond to Qurium’s emails concerning the attacks on Peoples Gazette, Kloop, Bulatlat, and Turkmen.news, as well as the additional attacks on Nacionale in July and August.
Proxies and VPNs have valid and important uses for ensuring internet users, including journalists, can maintain privacy online. Rights organizations, including CPJ, recommend the use of VPNs to defend against surveillance; individuals can use it to avoid state-backed online censorship, and companies use them to safeguard proprietary information. But Lundström described the use of proxy and VPN services to conduct DDoS attacks as a “weaponization” of these tools. “You’re hiding in a tool [made] for another purpose,” he said of the attackers. “I think it’s a strategic decision.”
“DDoS attacks are illegal under a section of the [U.S.] Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” Gabe Rottman, director of the Technology and Press Freedom Project at the U.S.-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which provides legal support to journalists, told CPJ. But he said that it is not necessarily illegal for proxy or VPN companies to provide services that are then used in DDoS attacks.
That doesn’t mean service providers can’t take actions. “You can have technology providers doing appropriate things to protect their users and others at the same time as they build their service in a way that protects privacy,” Rottman said. “If … you become aware of bad actors doing bad things, notify the authorities, stop them from using your service, mitigate the damage.”
Attacks on the SJS website have continued, Lundström told CPJ, though none of the IPs have come via RayoByte since Qurium and CPJ contacted Sprious for comment. Nevertheless, Lundström wants RayoByte’s leadership to do more to address the fact that attackers have repeatedly come to the company’s services to target media sites. “[RayoByte’s] making all the money,” he said. “And we have to do all this extra work and build new infrastructure to deal with all this shit.”
As for SJS, Abdalle remains worried about his colleague, who is still behind bars. But he says he’s confident that the press freedom group’s website will remain accessible. He still doesn’t know the identity of the person or people who launched the cyberattack, but he imagines what they might be thinking: “Now they are witnessing, they are coming into a new reality that even after the attack SJS is still resilient. SJS is still active. SJS is still available and is able to work and operate effectively both online and physically inside Somalia.”
Editor’s note: The first name and title of Qurium’s technical director Tord Lundström was added in the 11th paragraph.
On Thursday, June 29, unidentified gunmen shot Abiad while he was driving with his family in Quezon City, Metro Manila, multiple news reports said. Two assailants fled the scene after the shooting.
Abiad, a photojournalist who covers the police for the local outlet Remate Online, was receiving hospital treatment for two gunshot wounds and was in stable condition as of Friday. At least three of Abiad’s family members were injured in the attack and were receiving treatment at a hospital in Manila; one bystander was also shot.
At least two journalists have been killed in relation to their work since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president of the Philippines in mid-2022; CPJ is investigating the motive of a third killing. Journalists, editors, and activists have told CPJ that, while Marcos Jr. has demurred from the overt antagonism toward the media seen under his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, those rhetorical changes have not been accompanied by substantive actions to improve conditions for the press.
“How many journalists need to be shot before the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration takes its country’s impunity problem seriously?” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Philippine authorities must stop at nothing to track down and hold to account those responsible for shooting journalist Joshua Abiad and his family members, as well the culprits behind all other journalist shootings in recent years.”
Police spokesperson Redrico Maranan Jr. said Friday that police had created a special investigation task group to pursue the case.
Authorities have reviewed surveillance footage of the incident, which showed a man wearing a black jacket firing several shots into Abiad’s car while a separate motorcycle rider acted as a lookout.
The Presidential Task Force on Media Security, a state agency composed of Philippine police and tasked with solving media murders, said in a statement that Abiad also served as a witness in drug cases for the Philippine National Police and Drug Enforcement Agency.
The task force did not immediately reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment, including on whether it considered the attack likely related to Abiad’s journalism. Remate Online did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on the attack.
The Philippines ranked seventh on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, which spotlights countries worldwide where journalists are slain and the killers go free.
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