Safety of journalists
Safety of journalists is the ability of journalists and media professionals to receive, produce and share information without facing physical or moral threats.
Journalists can face violence and intimidation for exercising their fundamental right to freedom of expression. The range of threats they are confronted with include murder, kidnapping, hostage-taking, offline and online harassment, intimidation, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and torture. Women journalists also face specific dangers and are specially vulnerable to sexual assault, whether in the form of a targeted sexual violation, often in reprisal for their work; mob-related sexual violence aimed against journalists covering public events; or the sexual abuse of journalists in detention or captivity. Many of these crimes are not reported as a result of powerful cultural and professional stigmas."
Increasingly, journalists, and particularly women journalists, are facing abuse and harassment online, such as hate speech, cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking, doxing, trolling, public shaming, intimidation and threats.
Violence against journalists
From 2016 to 2020, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay condemned the deaths of 400 journalists. A downward trend is observed compared to the period from 2012 to 2016, when the Director-General of UNESCO condemned the death of 530 journalists, which is equivalent to an average of two death per week. In 2021, 55 killings of journalists were recorded, this is the lowest number recorded by the Director-General of UNESCO in 14 years. In 2020, most of the murders committed against journalists took place in a context other than that of an armed conflict, representing 61% of the murders of journalists of the year. The opposite trend was observed for the year 2016, where 50% of killings took place in countries in countries experiencing armed conflict.According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 50 per cent of those whose death was confirmed to be related to their work as journalist were murdered, while 36 per cent were caught in the crossfire and 14% killed while on dangerous assignment. According to the NGO, political groups were the most likely source of violence in these killings, followed by military officials and unknown sources.
The UNESCO's study World Trend Report in Freedom of Expression and media development: Global Report 2017/2018, has found that over the past five years, 113 freelance journalists were killed, representing 21% of the total of the journalist killed. It has been considered that freelance journalists are particularly vulnerable, often working alone on stories, in dangerous environments, and without the same level of assistance and protection as staff-journalists. The past few years, the trend has been confirmed, in fact the Report of the Organization's Director-General on the safety of journalists and the dangers of impunity of 2022 has found that for the period 2020–2021, around 1/5 of all journalist killings were freelance journalists. The study establishes that 11 freelance journalist killings were recorded in 2020, representing 18% of all killings and 11 in 2021 representing 20% of the killings.
From 2016 to 2020, television journalists have been by far the most attacked group among journalists, accounting for 134 journalist fatalities, or 34%, in the past five years. Indeed, the journalists covering conflict were considered particularly vulnerable and at high risk of being either killed in crossfire or directly targeted, they have been followed by journalists working mainly for print, radio, online and those working cross platforms. Nonetheless, in the last report of the Director-General of the UNESCO about the safety of journalists and the danger of the impunity of 2022, a new trend has been observed: during the 2020–2021 biennium cross-platform journalists have become the most vulnerable to fatal attacks. By 2021, they constituted 41% of the total number of fatalities for that year.
Notable examples
In 2018, Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi was ambushed, suffocated, and dismembered by agents of the Saudi government.On May 11, 2022, Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head and killed while covering a raid by the Israel Defense Forces on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Separate investigations by the Associated Press, Bellingcat, The New York Times, and the Washington Post all independently concluded that fire from an IDF unit was the most likely cause of Akleh's death. Eyewitnesses told CNN that Akleh was likely deliberately targeted by the IDF.
Terrorism and increasing risks
represents a direct and growing threat for journalists, which has taken the form of kidnappings, executions threats or hacking. At the end of the 1970s, the general policy of welcoming journalists into areas of guerrillas control changed. Organizations such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Shining Path in Peru and the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria targeted journalists, considering them as the auxiliaries of the powers they were combating, and thus as enemies. Between 1993 and 1997, more than 100 journalists and media workers were killed in Algeria. During the Lebanese Civil War, kidnapping international journalists became a common tactic.According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 40% of the journalists murdered in 2015 were killed by groups claiming adherence to radical Islam. International press correspondents, in particular, are considered potential hostages, or sacrificial lambs, whose execution is dramatized to serve terrorist propaganda. This happened to James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Kenji Goto, who were beheaded by Daesh.
Trauma and the emotional impact of witnessing terrorism is also an issue for journalists, as they may experience anxiety, insomnia, irritation and physical problems such as fatigue or headaches. It can also lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, which can cause incapacitating feelings of horror, fear and despair. According to the study Eyewitness Media Hub of 2015, 40% of the journalists who were interviewed admitted that viewing video testimonies had had negative effects on their personal life.
The protection of sources and surveillance is one of the major issues in the coverage of terrorism in order to protect witnesses and interviewees against reprisals.
Impunity for crimes against journalists
There is a continuing trend of impunity for crimes against journalists, with 87% of cases of killings of journalists unresolved. The Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Edison Lanza considers impunity as a key obstacle to ensuring journalists' safety. Frank La Rue, UNESCO's former Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information considers that its "root cause has to be attributed to lack of political will to pursue investigations, including for fear of reprisals from criminal networks in addition to inadequate legal frameworks, a weak judicial system, lack of resources allocated to law enforcement, negligence, and corruption".UNESCO has set up a mechanism to monitor the status of judicial enquiries into the killings of journalists. Each year, the Director-General of the Organization sends a request to Member States in which killings of journalists have occurred asking them to inform it of the status of ongoing investigations on each killing condemned. UNESCO records the responses to these requests in a public report submitted every two years to the International Programme for the Development of Communication Council by the Director-General. In 2021 the Organization sent letters to 64 Member States requesting information on the status of unresolved cases that occurred between 2006 and 2020 and received some form of response from 40 of them. As of 31 December 2020, a total of 1,229 journalists had been killed since UNESCO began systematically monitoring journalist killings and impunity in 2006. Of those, 163 cases are now considered fully resolved, the same resolution rate as that recorded the previous year. Of the remaining cases, 706 are considered ongoing or unresolved, and for 360 cases, States concerned did not provided any information.
At its 68th session in 2013, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/68/163 proclaiming 2 November as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. The day acts to promote understanding of the broader issues that accompany impunity and to strengthen international commitment to ensuring a safe and enabling environment for journalists.
The United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity supports Member States in the implementation of proactive initiatives to address the prevailing culture of impunity, such as judicial capacity building and the strengthening of monitor and prosecution mechanisms.
In 2023, Committee to Protect Journalists published the report “Deadly Pattern,” documenting twenty-two years of Israeli forces killing journalists and evading responsibility, including claims, with unsubstantiated evidence, that the slain were not journalists.
On April 16, 2025 Israel targeted journalists, including an airstrike which killed Fatima Hassouna, prior to her film being shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the IDF claimed she was a militant. Ten members of her family died in the attack, including her pregnant sister.
Non-lethal and physically violent attacks against journalists
Other attacks on the safe practice of journalism
According to data compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the imprisonment of journalists on charges relating to anti-state activities, criminal defamation, blasphemy, retaliation or on no charge at all, has continued to rise. In 2022, the CPJ reported that 363 journalists were imprisoned worldwide in a range of charges. According to the non-governmental organization this number represents a new global record "that overtakes last year's record by 20% and marks another grim milestone in a deteriorating media landscape".RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire has stated that "a full-blown hostage industry has developed in certain conflict zones", with a 35 per cent increase in 2015 compared to the previous year of the number of media hostages held worldwide.
Reporters Without Borders —which tracks the imprisonment of citizen journalists, along with professional journalists—reported that 533 journalists were detained in 2022, which represents an increase of 13,4% of the imprisonment rate compared to 2021. Never before has RSF recorded such a high number of imprisoned journalists. 2022 reportedly saw the proportion of women journalists imprisoned reach heights with an increase of 27.9% compared to 2021. During this year, four countries China, Iran, Myanmar and Belarus imprisoned more than 70% of the women journalists.
In March 2024 China Issued an apology after local journalists were shown being harassed and being obstructed from reporting by an incident about a gas leak. In 2023 China had 44 journalists imprisoned.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa has documented incidents of intimidation such as the torching of vehicles, physical assault and death threats. In parts of the Arab region, journalists and prominent writers have reportedly suffered death threats, been severely beaten and had travel restrictions imposed upon them. In the Asia Pacific region, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance has noted that in some insecure contexts, physical insecurity is reportedly so tenuous that some journalists have chosen to arm themselves.
Threats and actual cases of violence and imprisonment, as well as harassment, are reported to have forced a large number of local journalists into exile each year. Between 1 June 2012 and 31 May 2015, at least 272 journalists reportedly went into exile for work-related persecution worldwide.