Committee to Protect Journalists Unveils the Impunity Index

There's a new list of nations that let journalists get killed. The idea is to embarrass leaders whose countries are on the list, so that they'll follow up when someone kills a reporter in their territory.

To get on the list, a country would have to have an outstanding number of cases where a journalist was murdered, and no murderer found or brought to justice. And, maintained this level of inaction for the last nine years.

And the winners are:

1. Iraq
2. Sierra Leone
3. Somalia
4. Colombia
5. Sri Lanka
6. Philippines
7. Afghanistan
8. Nepal
9. Russia
10. Mexico
11. Bangladesh
12. Pakistan
13. India

The top three, marked in red, are preoccupied with armed conflicts: which tend to make any sort of law enforcement awkward. The others, though, seem to have earned a place on the Impunity Index through sheer merit.

Although I think that reporters can be a royal pain in the neck, they also serve an important function. In theory, at least, reporters find and report facts that people in free societies need.

And no group should fall outside the law's protection.

About the Committee to Protect Journalists' hope that national leaders can be embarrassed by having their shortcomings published: I think it's worth a try.

• The Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
  • "Getting Away With Murder"
    Committee to Protect Journalists (April 30, 2008)
    "DPJ's Impunity Index ranks countries where killers of journalists go free"
    The lead paragraph told me that we're looking at something a bit off the norm for this sort of report.
    "Democracies from Colombia to India and Russia to the Philippines are among the worst countries in the world at prosecuting journalists' killers according to the Impunity Index, a list of countries compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists where governments have consistently failed to solve journalists' murders."
    The page includes the methodology used, a statistical table, and a video.
  • "Statistics: Journalists Killed"
    "Since 1992, the Committee to Protect Journalists has compiled detailed accounts of every journalist killed on duty worldwide."
    This page links to detailed reports and resources.
• The News:
  • "New index names 13 countries where killers of journalists get away with murder"
    International Herald Tribune (May 1, 2008)
    "UNITED NATIONS: Thirteen countries are the worst offenders in letting killers of journalists get away with murder — from war-torn Iraq and Somalia to peaceful democracies including Mexico, Russia and India, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
    "The committee said governments in the 13 countries have consistently failed to solve murders where journalists were targeted from 1998 through 2007.
    "There are at least 199 unsolved murders in these countries during that 10-year period — 79 in Iraq, 24 in the Philippines, at least 20 in Colombia, 14 in Russia, 9 in Sierra Leone, 8 in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, 7 in Afghanistan and Mexico, and 5 in Somalia, Nepal and India.
    " 'This is a naming and shaming exercise,' Prof. Sheila Coronel of the Columbia University Journalism School, said at a news conference Wednesday at U.N. headquarters launching the new Impunity Index."
  • "Iraq tops 13 countries where journalists' killers are not prosecuted - CPJ"
    KUNA (Kuwait News Agency) (April 30, 2008)
    "UNITED NATIONS, April 30 (KUNA) -- Iraq tops the "Impunity Index" of 13 "democracies" where governments consistently failed to prosecute journalists' killers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) which released the Index for the first time in connection with World Press Freedom Day to be marked May 3rd.
    The 13 countries where governments are unable or unwilling to prosecute the killers are: Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Afghanistan, Nepal, Russia, Mexico, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.
    The committee acknowledged that the first three countries have been mired in conflict, but the rest, it noted, are "peacetime democracies," such as Mexico, where elected governments have failed to protect journalists.
    " 'Every time a journalist is murdered and the killer is allowed to walk free it sends a terrible signal to the press and to others who would harm journalists,' Joel Simon, CPJ Executive Director, told a press conference on Wednesday."
  • "CPJ Names 13 Countries Where Journalists' Killers Go Free"
    VOA ( Voice of America) (April 30, 2008)
    "The Committee to Protect Journalists says governments in South Asia are among the worst in the world at prosecuting the killers of journalists. In a new Impunity Index that covers unsolved murders over the past nine years, six of the 13 countries that have consistently failed to solve these cases are in South Asia. From U.N. headquarters in New York, VOA's Margaret Besheer has more.
    "CPJ's new Impunity Index cites 13 countries as having the worst records for letting killers of journalists get away with murder.
    " 'There are many problems confronting journalists around the world - censorship, incarceration - but there is no greater threat to the free circulation of ideas and information than murder,' said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. 'Especially murder without consequence. And that is what this Impunity Index measures.' "
    

The Names of Abu Sayyaf: Thinking About Translations

Terrible as it is, the efforts of religious fanatics to convert or kill the rest of the world has been an opportunity for me to learn a little about the Arabic language.

Researching a recent post, I found items about Arabic and Abu Sayyaf that didn't quite relate to the post's topic, but were too interesting to file and forget.

Abu Sayyaf has quite a few names. "Abu Sayyaf," "Jamāʿah Abū Sayyāf," (جماعة أبو سياف written in the Roman alphabet), and "al-Harakat al-Islamiyah." The Wikipedia article says that the name comes from Arabic ابو, abu ("father of") and sayyaf ("Swordsmith").

As usual, translations of the name don't agree. "bearer of the sword" or "Sword of God" or literally "Father of the Sword" in Arabic.

Council on Foreign Relations, renown experts since the Wilson administration, says this about them, "Abu Sayyaf (the phrase means 'bearer of the sword' in Arabic) is a militant organization based in the southern Philippines seeking a separate Islamic state for the country's Muslim minority."

So what? I'm directing the next remarks mostly at American citizens, but the principles apply to many other people.

Unless you read, and speak, Arabic and other languages, you're getting your information about affairs in the Islamic world through a medium that translates statements. And translation involves choosing which word or phrase to use, of many possibilities.

I don't advocate not believing what you read. I do suggest that you think about what can happen in translations as you read.

Related posts:

• The Names of Abu Sayyaf: Thinking About Translations (August 19, 2007)
• "Quagmire," the Revolutionary Guard, and the News (August 19, 2007)
• News, Truth, and the Big Picture (August 11, 2007)
• Watch for Weird Words: Election's Coming Up! (August 9, 2007)

Abu Sayyaf: What do They Really Want?

A group of Philippine terrorists called Abu Sayyaf is under attack by Philippine troops. Another "Muslim rebel group engaged in peace talks with the government, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF], admitted its rebels killed 14 marines during the clash in Al-Barka, accusing them of encroaching into a rebel stronghold," according to the Associated Press. The MILF said it didn't behead 10 of the 14 marines.

There are a couple of interesting points in recent news from the Philippines.

Beheading is a fairly common form of execution in Saudi Arabia, the heart of the Islamic world. Saudi clerics say this is okay, since the victims are criminals, but that Islamic groups beheading people for the publicity value aren't doing the Muslim thing.

It looks like terrorist groups are listening. The MILF denial that it was responsible for beheadings seems to indicate that beheading is no longer on the cutting edge of terrorist techniques.

Another point of interest is a video that hasn't been distributed yet.

Abu Sayyaf is distributing a sixty-two-minute video on the Internet, according to SITE, an American-based group of terrorist-watchers. According to SITE, an Abu Sayyaf spokesman gives an eloquent statement of the Islamic organization.

"The mission of the group is patterned after al-Qaeda and other Salafist movements, seeking the creation of a pan-Islam state, and as stated by Abdul Raziq Janjalani, 'Our only goal is to try to establish an Islamic state. We understand that establishing a Muslim State is not limited to Mindanao… We do not have any choice but to start with Mindanao. If we succeed, we will move to Visayas, then to Besoon, Allah willing, until we reach al-Quds [Jerusalem].'" (The Search For International Terrorist Entities (SITE)

It's not not likely that Abu Sayyaf will achieve their goal. They most likely have only a few hundred troops, with the number reduced after recent attacks by Philippine forces.

The importance of this video, assuming that the SITE report is accurate, is that it gives a very clear picture of what Abu Sayyaf, and quite likely other al Qaeda-related groups have as a goal: to establish an Islamic state from Mindanao (or wherever the group in question is) to Jerusalem.

If they succeed, the rest of us had better get used to calling that city "al-Quds." And making sure that we're sufficiently Islamic to keep our heads.