Our four-year road to A Safer World For The Truth
The first phase of A Safer World For The Truth has come to an end in December 2023. It was initiated by Free Press Unlimited in 2019 to combat impunity for murders of journalists by investigating them, and actively seeking justice through institutional and alternative justice mechanisms. In these four years we have had many insights and achievements.
Unfortunately, we do not always have the ability to gather evidence immediately after a journalist is killed. Especially when it happens amidst a humanitarian crisis. At least 79 journalists have been killed since 7 October 2023 in the continuing crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Israel and Lebanon. Journalists are specifically targeted. This is also shown by Reuters' investigation into the murder of their colleague Issam Abdallah. He, and six other journalists, were targeted by an Israeli tank crew while reporting on cross-border shelling in southern Lebanon. Ongoing hostilities have made it nearly impossible to properly investigate these deaths, limiting the possibilities for justice. The ability to gather evidence immediately after an attack on a journalist could prevent impunity for such crimes.
Getting justice for these attacks is of paramount importance. We owe it to the many journalists who were killed while doing their jobs: uncovering the truth.
Looking back
When we started four years ago, we aimed to understand how impunity for murders of journalists works, and develop investigation-based advocacy methods to prevent impunity and bring perpetrators to account. We have since investigated 17 cold cases of murders of journalists, of which seven resulted in investigative reports while others resulted in proceedings in institutional or alternative justice mechanisms such as the People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists. As a result, we have become a center of expertise on the matter, having been cited more than 500 times in international and national media outlets.
Combined efforts
Our most important achievement is not just ours to claim, but rather a result of our combined efforts. Families, friends, colleagues, legal actors and journalists all around the world are joining forces to get justice for their loved ones. We help them, and you, getting answers and pursuing justice by uncovering new information through setting up collaborations between CSOs, journalists, legal actors and advocacy specialists. For some of those we worked with, collaborating on these cases was the closest they had ever been to getting justice.
This is why we do what we do. And with success. Over the past four years, we have provided justice in several cases. Here are a few of our key achievements:
- In the Philippines, our work contributed to the reinstatement of an arrest warrant for the former Palawan Governor Joel T. Reyes - the alleged mastermind of the murder of journalist Gerry Ortega - and to his loss in a gubernatorial election bid in 2022. As a result of our collaborative efforts with the Ortega family and the National Union for Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), Reyes has since been barred from public office.
- In Pakistan, we petitioned the High Court of Sindh for the reopening of investigations in the murder case of Zubair Mujahid. Additionally, together with our local partners, we set up a Task Force in Cases of Murders of Journalists, which is geared towards providing expertise in murder cases to counter persistent impunity in Pakistan.
- In Brazil, our work has led to Brazilian authorities undertaking additional investigative acts in the case of Pedro Palma, such as interviewing additional witnesses and requesting phone records that could serve as critical evidence. On the back of our investigative work, the National Observatory on Violence Against Journalists has committed to develop a manual for prosecutors for investigating murders of journalists.
- In Kenya, we successfully lobbied for a reinvestigation of a cold case, which is currently being conducted by the Independent Police Oversight Authority.
- And in Greece, our work led to the case of Sokratis Giolias being taken up in the Council of Europe Alert System, forcing the Greek government to provide regular updates to the Council of Europe on progress in the case. They have been requested to provide an answer to the Council of Europe by December 2023.
Tools for justice
On 2 November 2023, we published a report detailing strategies Civil Society Organizations can use to fight impunity for murders of journalists. This report shines light on the windows of opportunities to contribute to justice, discusses the challenges we encountered, and shares examples from other CSOs and movements working towards justice as well.
Next to investigating murders of journalists and trying to hold the perpetrators to account, we are actively analyzing how justice comes to be in these cases, what justice entails and with what kind of network we are best placed to achieve it. This way of working has led to A Safer World Of The Truth becoming part of an international network of state and non-state actors working towards justice for murders of journalists.
A Safer World For The Truth is initiated by Free Press Unlimited (FPU) with support from Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
