CPJ’s 2021 Impunity Index: Pakistan remain among top 10 nations in world

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Pakistan has once again ranked ninth on Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) annual Global Impunity Index, which highlights countries where journalists are killed but their murderers go free.

According to a report by Geo TV, Pakistan and the Philippines have been mainstays on the index since its inception in 2008.

CPJ’s 2021 Impunity Index ranking is: Somalia, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico, Philippines, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, Bangladesh.

Every year, the CPJ index lists stable countries where criminal and political groups, politicians, business leaders, and other powerful actors use violence to muzzle voices of investigative journalists.

Citing CPJ data, Geo TV reported 62 Pakistan journalists have been killed in attacks since 1992 and there are 12 unsolved murder cases of journalists.

Meanwhile, Somalia remains to be the world’s worst country with unsolved cases of killings of journalists.

Mexico holds the sixth spot on the index for the second straight year, while Bangladesh improved one spot in the index this year, to 11th, due to convictions in February in the 2015 murders of secular blogger Avijit Roy and his publisher, Faisal Arefin Dipan, Geo TV reported.