There is a shaky cellphone video that’s haunted me since the day I first saw it. It shows the horrifying aftermath of the cold-blooded killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who died in early May while covering an Israeli army operation in the West Bank town of Jenin for Al Jazeera.
What stands out to me most from the footage of that horrific assault—which multiple journalistic investigations and the U.N. Human Rights Office have determined was likely carried out by members of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)—is Abu Akleh’s colleague, Shatha Hanaysha, who is as she is pinned down by gunfire beneath a small tree, just a few feet from Abu Akleh’s lifeless body. I’ll never forget Hanaysha’s expressions of trauma, grief, and panic during those devastating moments of abject violence.
The circumstances of Abu Akleh’s killing—she and her colleagues were wearing clothing clearly identifying them as press, and they had alerted Israeli officials of their presence—reveal a disturbing pattern of brazenness by her killers that has become increasingly common, not only in the West Bank, but around the world. The number of journalists killed and disappeared globally is troubling, and while the circumstances of each crime vary, one word is consistently repeated in discussions about the trend: impunity.
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In the first half of this year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had already documented forty-two journalists killed globally, with the motive confirmed in twenty-four cases. At least sixty-five journalists remained missing during the same period. As of June, that number is approaching the total number of journalist killings that were documented in all of 2021—forty-five, with twenty-eight cases in which the CPJ confirmed the motive.
“What the numbers . . . tell me, as well as what I see on a daily basis in terms of the level of harassment both online and off that journalists face, is that the environment for journalists is extremely dangerous,” CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg tells The Progressive.
The largest number comes from Ukraine, where, as of June, fifteen journalists had been killed. Most of these deaths were attributed to Russian forces following that country’s invasion of Ukraine, on February 24. Among them is French cameraman Frédéric Leclerc-Imhof, who was killed in late May while riding in a nonmilitary humanitarian caravan marked “humanitarian aid.” His vehicle was reportedly shelled by Russian forces. Ukrainian photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Maks Levin went missing in mid-March, and his body was found in April. Ukrainian officials stated that he was likely shot and killed by Russian forces. Around the same time, Lithuanian documentary filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius was killed by Russian forces while trying to flee the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. According to a colleague, Kvedaravičius died “with a camera in his hands.” These cases, and others, are being investigated as war crimes.
“It’s important for all parties to recognize that in conflict journalism, media workers are civilians under international law, and their rights must be respected and protected,” Ginsberg says.
Yet it’s not happening just in war zones. In another high-profile case in June, British journalist Dom Phillips and his colleague, Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian Indigenous affairs official, were killed while investigating encroachment onto Indigenous lands in Brazil’s remote Amazon region by criminal elements involved in illegal mining, logging, and fishing. A local fisherman later confessed to the crime, but the initial response by Brazilian officials to the disappearance of the two men has been criticized as slow and ineffective.
Equally troubling is that while the men were missing, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly sided with illegal loggers and miners in the region, made inflammatory public comments blaming the victims for their deaths. Phillips “should have redoubled his focus on taking care of himself. But he decided to make this excursion,” Bolsonaro said, according to The Washington Post.
“There’s a clear pattern of threats and attacks on journalists and activists in Brazil who document environmental issues and violations of Indigenous peoples’ rights, and authorities haven’t put in place effective mechanisms for their protection,” Ginsberg says.
Leaders like Bolsonaro, Ginsberg adds, “create an environment in which journalists are seen as fair game. His comments did not suggest he was genuinely concerned about the welfare of these individuals.”
While the deaths of Phillips and Pereira garnered international attention, most killings of Brazilian journalists generate less international condemnation, which needs to change. In the past five years, eight journalists have been killed in Brazil, mostly in smaller towns and rural areas. Brazil ranks eighth in the CPJ’s 2021 Global Impunity Index.
In the past thirty years, more than 1,500 journalists have been killed around the world. According to the CPJ’s 2021 Global Impunity Index, no one has been held accountable in of journalist killings since 2011.
And in terms of impunity and ongoing threats, perhaps no country outside of a war zone is more troubling than Mexico, which ranks on the CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, just behind Afghanistan. In the first half of this year, Mexico had already registered eleven killings of journalists.
“In [Mexico], not a single case of the disappearance of a journalist has been brought to justice.”
Sara Mendiola, executive director of Propuesta Cívica, which provides legal aid to victims’ families in cases of journalist deaths, disappearances, and kidnappings, tells The Progressive that Mexico has an impunity rate of 95 percent in cases where journalists are killed, and a staggering 100 percent rate in cases of forced disappearances of journalists. This is despite having government institutions in place for years to specifically protect journalists and prosecute crimes against freedom of expression. Mendiola says the number of cases began to spike in the year 2000, and it hasn’t stopped since. “In the context of democracy, that’s just sad and unacceptable,” she says.
Mendiola says Propuesta Cívica has identified a pattern among both aggressors and victims in these cases, and most of those responsible for ordering attacks against journalists are public officials. In many cases, corrupt public officials order the attacks to be carried out by members of organized criminal gangs. The public officials ordering the attacks are rarely held accountable.
“In our country, not a single case of the disappearance of a journalist has been brought to justice,” Mendiola says.
So what can be done to end the ongoing impunity? In Abu Akleh’s killing, it’s important that journalists in the United States continue to press officials for a full and transparent investigation. In May, fifty-seven House Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding an official investigation of the killing of Abu Akleh, who was an American citizen. The letter also urges the State Department to determine whether any U.S. laws protecting Abu Akleh were violated.
The following month, twenty-four U.S. Senators sent a to President Joe Biden calling for an “independent, thorough, and transparent” investigation into her killing. The CPJ also Biden a letter.
The response from the State Department is appalling. On July 4—a U.S. federal holiday, when news was certain to be overlooked—the State Department issued a statement saying an “extremely detailed forensic analysis” by an independent examiner had determined that the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was too damaged to reach a conclusion about who fired it.
Worse, after reviewing investigations by both the IDF and the Palestinian Authority, the U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC) concluded that while the IDF likely fired the fatal shot, USSC “found no reason to believe that this was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
“We are incredulous,” Abu Akleh’s family responded. The USSC’s conclusion “is frankly insulting to Shireen’s memory and ignores the history and context of the brutal and violent nature of what is now the longest military occupation in modern history.”
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called it a “U.S.-backed Israeli whitewash,” according to Al Jazeera.
Journalists have a responsibility to ask tough questions about this, during press briefings at the State Department, Pentagon, White House, and elsewhere.
In Ukraine, local efforts to prosecute war crimes committed against journalists should be supported while understanding that resources are strained during an active conflict. Reporters can also cover the efforts by other countries, such as France, to investigate and prosecute these war crimes, as well as the efforts to bring these types of cases to the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, and other international bodies.
In Mexico, the international community must pressure the Mexican government to end impunity in cases of violence against journalists by bringing the perpetrators—often corrupt public officials—to justice. Institutions designed to protect journalists must begin to function as they were intended. And local efforts to involve civil society—such as those by groups like Propuesta Cívica—should be supported.
Shireen Abu Akleh’s killers have names, ranks, and commanding officers. Those officers have political superiors. Ending the impunity in cases of violence against journalists around the world starts with making sure her killers are brought to justice.