By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, Nov. 5, 2018: India’s press freedom has “worsened,” says the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
In this year’s Global Impunity Index (GII) on press freedom based on a report CPJ, India ranked at 14th position.
The unsolved cases of India remain 18.
“Government, political and ideological intolerance, criminal gangs and armed insurrection and ultra-communist movements have severely impacted the freedom of the journalist, the editor and the platform, TV or print,” said John Dayal, a New Delhi-based senior journalist. reacting to the latest impunity index report.
“But while some are deemed professional risk factors, government pressure is the worst. The current government is entirely intolerant of dissent and hates being interrogated on its lapses,” Dayal told Matters India.
The India’s spot was preceded by Somalia, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Philippines, Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh and Nigeria.
The impunity index calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population. The GII report was released just ahead of observance of International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on November 2.
For this index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between September 1, 2008, and August 31, 2018, and remain unsolved. Only those nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index.
CPJ defines murder as a deliberate attack against a specific journalist in relation to the victim’s work. This index does not include cases of journalists killed in combat or while on dangerous assignments, such as coverage of protests.
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 are also categorized as partial impunity.
The index only tallies murders that have been carried out with complete impunity. It does not include those where partial justice has been achieved.
Population data from the World Bank’s 2017 World Development Indicators were used in calculating each country’s rating.