Fascinating
Senior Member
- May 14, 2025
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Every 2 November, the world asks a question that rarely receives a satisfying answer: when a journalist is killed, attacked, harassed or forcibly disappeared for doing their job, who is held to account? In most cases, the answer is still nobody.
The International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2013 through Resolution A/RES/68/163 and is led by UNESCO. The date commemorates the killing of French radio journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon in Mali on 2 November 2013 a case that itself remains a reminder of how difficult accountability can be.
Thirteen years later, the picture is both grimmer and more complicated than the day’s founders may have imagined. Killings still often go unpunished, but they are now accompanied by quieter tools of silencing: internet shutdowns, restrictive accreditation and licensing regimes, surveillance, online harassment, smear campaigns and broadly worded laws that can criminalise ordinary reporting.
The global picture: record violence, stubborn impunity
UNESCO’s most recent Director-General’s report found that the global impunity rate for killings of journalists stood at 85% in 2024. That is an improvement from 89% in 2018 and 95% in 2012, but UNESCO still describes it as shockingly high. In practical terms, roughly eight or nine in ten killings recorded since 2006 have not ended in a conviction.
More than 1,700 journalists were killed worldwide between 2006 and 2024. UNESCO also notes that, where cases are resolved, it takes an average of about four years to reach a judicial conclusion—an interval during which evidence fades, witnesses retreat and public attention moves on.
The violence has continued to worsen. UNESCO’s World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development report, published in December 2025, recorded 93 journalists killed in 2025, including 60 in conflict zones. Over its 2022–2025 reporting period, it found 186 journalists killed while covering conflict, a 67% increase compared with 2018–2021. UNESCO separately reports 162 conflict-zone killings from January 2022 to September 2025, so writers should cite the report’s specific period rather than treating the figures as full calendar-year totals.
The same UNESCO report found that self-censorship among journalists increased by 63% over the period, with reporters increasingly avoiding coverage of corruption, human rights and environmental harm.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded an even higher 2025 toll: a record 129 journalists and media workers killed, the deadliest year since CPJ began collecting data. CPJ attributed two-thirds of those deaths to Israel, largely in Gaza. Methodological differences explain why CPJ, UNESCO and other organisations produce different totals, but the direction of travel is the same.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) adds another warning: its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, released on 30 April 2026, recorded the lowest average global score in the index’s 25 year history. For the first time, more than half of the world’s countries were classified as “difficult” or “very serious” for press freedom.
Recent commemorations have also highlighted newer forms of harm. The 2025 observance focused on
AI-facilitated gender-based violence against women journalists harassment that may begin online but can lead to offline threats, professional exclusion and physical danger.
Africa: war, jails and shrinking space
Africa’s record is uneven, but the pressure is real. RSF’s 2026 Index classifies press freedom as “difficult” in 24 of 48 sub-Saharan African countries and “very serious” in five. Eritrea remains last globally at 180th and continues to hold journalists for years without due process, including Dawit Isaak.
Sudan is among the deadliest places in the world for the press. CPJ reported in April 2026 that at least 16 journalists and media workers had been killed since the war began, including at least five killed in drone strikes. It also documented enforced disappearances, with at least seven journalists missing as of mid-April 2026.
Impunity is not confined to war zones. In Ghana, the 2019 murder of investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela remains unresolved. The wider pattern is consistent: the killing is often only the beginning of a longer failure, when investigations stall, suspects are not identified, and families are left without answers.
East Africa: different trajectories
The 2026 RSF Index shows East Africa moving in different directions. Kenya ranks highest in the region at 106th, followed by Tanzania at 117th, South Sudan at 118th, Burundi at 119th, Somalia at 126th, the Democratic Republic of Congo at 130th, Uganda at 131st and Rwanda at 139th. Ethiopia fell to 148th, with RSF citing renewed fighting in Amhara and the continued detention of journalists.
Somalia remains one of the clearest examples of how impunity reproduces itself. The National Union of Somali Journalists documented 72 media-freedom violations in 2025, including one killing. CPJ counts at least 85 journalists and media workers killed in Somalia since 1992. These figures should be cited directly to NUSOJ and CPJ, as counting methods differ.
Uganda’s improvement in the rankings is real, but rank movements should be read cautiously. A country can rise because conditions improved at home or because conditions deteriorated elsewhere. What matters most to journalists is the daily reality: whether they can publish, protect sources, access information and expect an attacker to face justice.
Tanzania: a sharp fall after a hopeful start
For Tanzania, the past year has been a severe test of the promise of a more open media environment made after the 2021 change of government. RSF’s 2026 Index places Tanzania 117th, down from 95th in 2025 a fall of 22 places and the steepest decline in the region. CPJ’s assessment of the period from 2021 to April 2026 concluded that press freedom remains fragile and vulnerable to executive control.
Several developments explain the slide:
What ending impunity requires
The day is about remembrance, but the remedies are practical. Most are within the reach of governments, newsrooms, platforms and the public:
Impunity is not only a journalists’ problem. When a reporter is silenced, the public loses the story about a hospital, a land deal, a public contract, a missing person or a ballot box. Every unpunished attack teaches the next journalist to look away; every credible prosecution tells would-be attackers that there is a real cost.
UNESCO — 85% of journalist killings remain unpunished worldwide (2024)
UNESCO — Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity (2024 highlights)
UNESCO — International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
CPJ — Record number of journalists killed in 2025 (25 February 2026)
CPJ — “We cannot publish”: Fear silences Tanzanian journalists over election killings, arrests (8 December 2025)
The International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2013 through Resolution A/RES/68/163 and is led by UNESCO. The date commemorates the killing of French radio journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon in Mali on 2 November 2013 a case that itself remains a reminder of how difficult accountability can be.
Thirteen years later, the picture is both grimmer and more complicated than the day’s founders may have imagined. Killings still often go unpunished, but they are now accompanied by quieter tools of silencing: internet shutdowns, restrictive accreditation and licensing regimes, surveillance, online harassment, smear campaigns and broadly worded laws that can criminalise ordinary reporting.
The global picture: record violence, stubborn impunity
UNESCO’s most recent Director-General’s report found that the global impunity rate for killings of journalists stood at 85% in 2024. That is an improvement from 89% in 2018 and 95% in 2012, but UNESCO still describes it as shockingly high. In practical terms, roughly eight or nine in ten killings recorded since 2006 have not ended in a conviction.
More than 1,700 journalists were killed worldwide between 2006 and 2024. UNESCO also notes that, where cases are resolved, it takes an average of about four years to reach a judicial conclusion—an interval during which evidence fades, witnesses retreat and public attention moves on.
The violence has continued to worsen. UNESCO’s World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development report, published in December 2025, recorded 93 journalists killed in 2025, including 60 in conflict zones. Over its 2022–2025 reporting period, it found 186 journalists killed while covering conflict, a 67% increase compared with 2018–2021. UNESCO separately reports 162 conflict-zone killings from January 2022 to September 2025, so writers should cite the report’s specific period rather than treating the figures as full calendar-year totals.
The same UNESCO report found that self-censorship among journalists increased by 63% over the period, with reporters increasingly avoiding coverage of corruption, human rights and environmental harm.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded an even higher 2025 toll: a record 129 journalists and media workers killed, the deadliest year since CPJ began collecting data. CPJ attributed two-thirds of those deaths to Israel, largely in Gaza. Methodological differences explain why CPJ, UNESCO and other organisations produce different totals, but the direction of travel is the same.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) adds another warning: its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, released on 30 April 2026, recorded the lowest average global score in the index’s 25 year history. For the first time, more than half of the world’s countries were classified as “difficult” or “very serious” for press freedom.
Recent commemorations have also highlighted newer forms of harm. The 2025 observance focused on
AI-facilitated gender-based violence against women journalists harassment that may begin online but can lead to offline threats, professional exclusion and physical danger.
Africa: war, jails and shrinking space
Africa’s record is uneven, but the pressure is real. RSF’s 2026 Index classifies press freedom as “difficult” in 24 of 48 sub-Saharan African countries and “very serious” in five. Eritrea remains last globally at 180th and continues to hold journalists for years without due process, including Dawit Isaak.
Sudan is among the deadliest places in the world for the press. CPJ reported in April 2026 that at least 16 journalists and media workers had been killed since the war began, including at least five killed in drone strikes. It also documented enforced disappearances, with at least seven journalists missing as of mid-April 2026.
Impunity is not confined to war zones. In Ghana, the 2019 murder of investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela remains unresolved. The wider pattern is consistent: the killing is often only the beginning of a longer failure, when investigations stall, suspects are not identified, and families are left without answers.
East Africa: different trajectories
The 2026 RSF Index shows East Africa moving in different directions. Kenya ranks highest in the region at 106th, followed by Tanzania at 117th, South Sudan at 118th, Burundi at 119th, Somalia at 126th, the Democratic Republic of Congo at 130th, Uganda at 131st and Rwanda at 139th. Ethiopia fell to 148th, with RSF citing renewed fighting in Amhara and the continued detention of journalists.
Somalia remains one of the clearest examples of how impunity reproduces itself. The National Union of Somali Journalists documented 72 media-freedom violations in 2025, including one killing. CPJ counts at least 85 journalists and media workers killed in Somalia since 1992. These figures should be cited directly to NUSOJ and CPJ, as counting methods differ.
Uganda’s improvement in the rankings is real, but rank movements should be read cautiously. A country can rise because conditions improved at home or because conditions deteriorated elsewhere. What matters most to journalists is the daily reality: whether they can publish, protect sources, access information and expect an attacker to face justice.
Tanzania: a sharp fall after a hopeful start
For Tanzania, the past year has been a severe test of the promise of a more open media environment made after the 2021 change of government. RSF’s 2026 Index places Tanzania 117th, down from 95th in 2025 a fall of 22 places and the steepest decline in the region. CPJ’s assessment of the period from 2021 to April 2026 concluded that press freedom remains fragile and vulnerable to executive control.
Several developments explain the slide:
- Platform suspension. In September 2025, weeks before the general election, Tanzanian authorities suspended the popular discussion and news platform JamiiForums for 90 days. CPJ described the move as part of a deepening suppression of public discourse.
- The October 2025 election. Tanzania imposed a nationwide internet shutdown beginning on 29 October. CPJ describes it as a roughly five-day blackout affecting major social media and messaging platforms. Civil-society groups said the shutdown made it harder for journalists, election monitors and citizens to document events.
- Arrests and violence. Journalists in Arusha, including Ayo TV reporter Godfrey Thomas Ng’omba and Sunrise Radio journalist Alphonse Kusaga, were arrested during the post-election crackdown. Ng’omba was detained on election day, held for six days, rearrested and charged with treason; the charge was later withdrawn after a presidential directive. Kusaga was arrested on 4 November and released on bail the following day. An Azam Media journalist was also seriously injured in Dar es Salaam.
- Accreditation pressure. CPJ reports that, from early 2026, authorities intensified action against unaccredited journalists. This adds to existing licensing and content regulations that critics say encourage self-censorship.
- Unanswered cases. The 2017 disappearance of investigative journalist Azory Gwanda remains unresolved, nearly nine years later. For many Tanzanian journalists, his case has become the symbol of what impunity looks like.
What ending impunity requires
The day is about remembrance, but the remedies are practical. Most are within the reach of governments, newsrooms, platforms and the public:
- Independent and timely investigations. Cases should not depend on public outrage to move. Disappearances such as Gwanda’s require a named investigator, a clear mandate and regular public updates.
- Law reform. Governments should repeal or narrow cybercrime, sedition, false news and licensing provisions that are used to criminalise reporting, and should stop abusive litigation designed to exhaust journalists financially and emotionally.
- No blanket shutdowns. Internet shutdowns during elections silence everyone. They also destroy contemporaneous evidence that could later support accountability.
- Protection mechanisms with reach. National safety mechanisms must work for a freelancer in a regional town, not only for a well known correspondent in the capital.
- Newsroom and public solidarity. Digital-security training, trauma support, legal aid, protection for women journalists facing online abuse, and audience awareness all matter. Readers should treat attacks on journalists as attacks on the public’s right to know.
Impunity is not only a journalists’ problem. When a reporter is silenced, the public loses the story about a hospital, a land deal, a public contract, a missing person or a ballot box. Every unpunished attack teaches the next journalist to look away; every credible prosecution tells would-be attackers that there is a real cost.
UNESCO — 85% of journalist killings remain unpunished worldwide (2024)
UNESCO — Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity (2024 highlights)
UNESCO — International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
CPJ — Record number of journalists killed in 2025 (25 February 2026)
CPJ — “We cannot publish”: Fear silences Tanzanian journalists over election killings, arrests (8 December 2025)