Saleem Samad
In protest of countries where journalists have been the
victims of unpunished crimes and to mark International Day to End Impunity for
Crimes against Journalists on Monday (2 November), media rights defender Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) has renamed a street in Paris, France after slain
American-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy.
In a comment in Facebook last evening Avijit Roy’s wife
Rafida Ahmed Bonya also a survivor of brutal attack thanked RSF for this honor
and stated that the honor goes to all the
writers/bloggers/publishers/journalists hacked, tortured or killed for
expressing their free thoughts.
RSF has renamed 12 Parisian streets after journalists
who have been murdered, tortured or disappeared in recent times. The renamed
streets are those with embassies of countries where journalists have been the
victims of unpunished crimes, a statement issued on by Benjamin Ismaïl, Head of
Asia Desk, RSF.
The embassy addresses have been changed to draw
attention to the failure of these countries to take action and to remind them
of their obligation to do whatever is needed to bring those responsible for
these crimes to justice.
RSF is using these 12 emblematic cases to highlight the
fact that crimes of violence against journalists usually go unpunished because
official investigations are inadequate or non-existent and because governments
are apathetic. More than 90 percent of crimes against journalist are never
solved.
Five new names were added to the list in 2015. They
include Tunisian journalists Sofiane Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari, who went
missing in Libya in September 2014, and Radio France Internationale journalists
Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, who were murdered in Kidal, in northern
Mali, on 2 November 2013.
Six weeks after their murder, the UN General Assembly
created International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists and
decided that it should me marked on the anniversary of their deaths.
“The cases of impunity that we are presenting are
terrible symbols of passivity or deliberate inaction on the part of certain
governments,” RSF’s secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
“This International Day is an occasion for paying
homage to the victims and for reminding governments of their obligation to
protect journalists and to combat impunity. Those who target journalists will
one day be held to account for their actions.”
In order to combat impunity, Reporters Without Borders
is calling for the appointment of a special adviser to the UN secretary-general
on the safety of journalists.
Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow (USA), an award winning investigative journalist, a micro-blogger and correspondent of a Paris based international media rights defender Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Tweet @saleemsamad email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com
