Impunity Spotlight: Syria

Al-Moutaz Bellah Ibrahim

Shaam News Network. May 4, 2014, in Raqqa, Syria

Ibrahim, a correspondent for the independent Shaam News Network and a freelance reporter, was killed in Tel Abyad, a Syrian town north of the city of Raqqa, on May 4, according to Shaam and the Beirut-based SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom. Ibrahim was kidnapped by the Islamic State militant group (then called Islamic State in Iraq and Sham) in March, two months before his death, according to news reports and local press groups. His family received his body on May 7, 2014.

Syria is #3 on CPJ’s 2015 Impunity Index, which calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population. This month CPJ is highlighting cases from each of the 14 countries on the list ahead of the International Day to End Impunity on November 2.

Syria

War-torn Syria has jumped two spots to number three from number five. Eleven journalists have been deliberately killed since 2012, all with complete impunity. Increasingly, violence against the press is used in Syria not only as a means to control coverage but as a propaganda tactic. Islamist State militants beheaded three foreign correspondents beginning in August 2014, videotaping the gruesome acts for social media. But local journalists covering the devastating conflict within their own communities are frequently targeted not only by militant groups, but security forces and Syrian rebels. Syria is the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. Since the conflict began in 2011, at least 85 journalists have been killed by crossfire, on dangerous assignments, or murdered.

IMPUNITY INDEX RATING: 0.496 unsolved journalist murders per million inhabitants

LAST YEAR: Ranked 5th with a rating of 0.313