Russia Tops “Impunity Index”

In “Getting Away with Murder 2009,” the New York-based CPJ ranked Russia ninth on its annual “impunity index,” which ranks countries based on the number of unsolved journalists’ murders as a percentage of the country’s population. Only nations that have five or more unsolved murders make the list, which grew to 14 countries this year.

“As he took office in 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev promised that attacks against journalists would be investigated and prosecuted,” the findings stated. “Nevertheless, authorities have failed to obtain convictions in even high-profile killings such as the 2004 murder of Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov and the 2006 slaying of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.”  

War Zones Top List

War zones topped this year’s list. Iraq came in first with at least 88 unsolved murders of journalists since the US invasion in 2003, followed by Sierra Leone and Somalia. But while the report deplored the war zone killings, it noted that most of the countries on the list were peacetime democracies with functioning law enforcement, singling out Russia and the Philippines as the most prominent examples.

The report was released Monday (March 23) in the Philippine capital Manila, to mark the fourth anniversary of the murder of a Philippine columnist who was gunned down in her home in front of her family after reporting on corruption in the government’s agriculture department. Two government officials are accused of ordering her killing. The country was in sixth place on the impunity list, with 24 unsolved murders.

-- Beth Kampschror