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Crimes against journalists
(Kaieteur News) – Sunday marked the United Nations International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists—a reminder that attacks on the press are not distant tragedies, but a global emergency.
According to the UN, ending impunity for crimes against journalists is one of the most important and complex challenges of recent times. It is an essential precondition to guarantee freedom of expression and access to information for all citizens. This year’s observance highlights the threats women journalists face in the digital space and the chilling effect this can have on freedom of expression more broadly.
The United Nations said that, Latin America and the Caribbean remains the deadliest region for journalists, as highlighted in the UNESCO Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity.
Since 1993, more than 1,700 journalists have been murdered for doing their jobs: informing the public. Nine out of ten of those killers walk free, the UNESCO observatory reports. Impunity fuels continued violence, signalling collapsing justice systems and growing authoritarianism.
Murder is the most extreme silencing tactic, but far from the only one, the UN said. Journalists worldwide are stalked, kidnapped, assaulted, intimidated especially online. The UN warns that violence against reporters suffocates the free flow of ideas, leaving citizens in the dark. Women journalists are disproportionately targeted: 73% report online threats and abuse tied to their work, according to UNESCO’s The Chilling report. When threats are ignored or investigations stall, criminals grow bolder while societies grow more afraid.
Impunity hides corruption and rights abuses from the public eye. Justice systems that actively pursue offenders send the opposite message that truth will never be punished. The UN said too that in many cases, threats of violence and attacks against journalists are not properly investigated. This impunity emboldens the perpetrators of the crimes and at the same time has a chilling effect on society, including journalists themselves. UNESCO is concerned that impunity damages whole societies by covering up serious human rights abuses, corruption, and crime. Read and share the stories of killed journalists #TruthNeverDies. On the other hand, justice systems that vigorously investigate all threats of violence against journalists send a powerful message that society will not tolerate attacks against journalists and against the right to freedom of expression for all.
Here in Guyana, we may not count murdered journalists and we pray we never do, but we have seen frightening escalations: public harassment of reporters, newsroom intimidation, political operatives weaponising state platforms to smear, shame, and silence. Kaieteur News has stood in the direct line of fire targeted for exposing truths that powerful actors in the PPP/C Government would rather bury. Their strategy is transparent: discredit the press, bully dissenters, obstruct coverage of the oil sector, and muzzle those who warn of corruption and national betrayal. Silence the press, control the narrative, hide the mismanagement of Guyana’s once-in-a-lifetime resource.
With oil comes wealth and a history of grief, if secrecy wins. Guyana’s petroleum patrimony is now under global surveillance because of how often nations have been ruined by the same forces we now feel tightening around our own media. The more this government hides, the more suspicious the world and Guyanese become. The more it lashes out, the more determined real journalists are to pull back the curtain. This is the ground we stand on at KN. If the intention is fear, it has failed already. Guyana’s oil belongs to its people not to whichever politicians happened to be in office when it was discovered. Better leaders than ours have succumbed to oil’s corrosive influence; we refuse to let Guyana join that graveyard of shattered hopes. Our leaders have not earned blind trust and will not get it. We remain vigilant, relentless, and unbowed. The truth is our mandate, and we will defend it for the good of this nation
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