(Side event of the 54th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Geneva)
November 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity (UNPA), a framework for states to address attacks and threats against journalists and to improve the overall environment for press freedom around the world.
To mark this occasion, a coalition of civil society organizations worked together on a set of shared recommendations for improving its implementation. The Vienna Call To Action was developed in response to the worsening climate for press freedom and growing attacks against journalists over the decade since the UNPA was launched. This call sets out a clear roadmap for what states and other duty bearers can do to improve journalists’ safety and combat attacks against the press.
In the year since the Vienna Call to Action was issued, attacks against journalists continue unabated and impunity for these crimes remains unacceptably high. In Africa, this year has been one of the more violent on record, with six journalists killed in the first half of 2023.
Amid alarming cases of physical violence, journalists are also facing a range of other pressures in many parts of the world aimed at censoring and silencing their work. Governments are increasingly resorting to “lawfare” – or the use of restrictive laws to target and punish critical journalism and reporting – and have also resorted to the use of financial and tax laws to target and intimidate critical journalists.
For this panel, we will discuss the key challenges of ensuring that states and other duty bearers uphold their commitments to ensure that journalists can carry out their work freely and safely. We will discuss how the issue of journalists’ safety goes beyond protecting against physical attacks but also includes a growing arsenal of repressive tactics being deployed to stifle and punish independent media. We will also discuss the role that civil society, the media, and other stakeholders can play in pushing states to do more to uphold their commitments to press freedom and journalists’ safety.
Speakers
- Hon. Commissioner Ourveena Geereesha Topsy-Sonoo, ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (remote)
- Carlos Dada, founder and director of the news website El Faro
- Silvia Chocarro, Head of Protection, Article 19
- Sami Alhaj, Director of Al Jazeera Center for Public Liberties and Human Rights
- Frane Maroević, Executive Director, International Press Institute
With welcoming remarks by Ambassador Désirée Schweitzer, Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations Office in Geneva.
Moderator: Catherine Bokonga-Fiankan, UN Senior Correspondent; Vice-President of Swiss Press Club
This event is organized by the International Press Institute and the Al Jazeera Center for Public Liberties and Human Rights, in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations.
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Photo: Image taken at the IPI demonstration in November 2022 during the U.N. Plan of Action meeting in Vienna on International Day to End Impunity. The demonstrators were holding posters highlighting some of the murdered journalists from the past decade since the U.N. Plan of Action was established in 2012. Most of these killings have gone completely unpunished, or full justice has still not been served.