RSF reiterates call to UN on Bayeux journalists memorial anniversary
The loved-ones of five journalists killed in connection with their work will join Reporters Without Borders (RSF) at the Memorial for Journalists in the northern French city of Bayeux on 6 October, the eve of the 10th anniversary of the memorial’s inauguration.
RSF is using this occasion to reiterate its call to the United Nations to create the position of special representative of the secretary-general for the safety of journalists.
The Memorial for Journalists in Bayeux consists of a landscaped promenade with white stones bearing the names of journalists killed throughout the world since Bayeux’s liberation in 1944. When it was inaugurated on 7 October 2006, there were just under 2,000 names. Hundreds have been added in the past ten years.
RSF will be joined on 6 October by Claudine Kent, close relative of David Gilkey, a photo-journalist killed on 5 June 2016 in Afghanistan; Boshra Jerf, Naji Jerf's wife (syrian journalist murdered in Turkey in December 2015), Maryvonne Lepage, the mother of Camille Lepage, a French photographer murdered in the Central African Republic in May 2014; Deo Namujimbo, the brother of Didace Namujimbo, a Radio Okapi journalist murdered in Bukavu, in the east of the DRC, in November 2008; and Elena Milashina, a journalist and close friend of Anna Politkovskaïa, a newspaper reporter murdered exactly ten years ago, on 6 October 2006, in Moscow.
Milashina has continued the work of Politkovskaïa, whose investigative coverage of the Chechen conflict exposed many human rights violations and atrocities by the Russian army.
A total of 110 journalists were killed in connection with their work or for unclear reasons in 2015, according to the tally kept by RSF, which is in a position to say that 67 of them were targeted because of their work or were killed while reporting. The total number of journalists killed in connection with their work since 2005 currently stands at more than 800.
Hundreds of citizen journalists and media workers have also been killed. These disturbing figures are indicative of an escalation in deliberate, targeted violence against journalists and the long-term inadequacy of the initiatives taken to protect them.
“The creation of a concrete mechanism for enforcing international law on protecting journalists is essential,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Non-state groups are now perpetrating atrocities against journalists while many states are not respecting their obligations. The more than 800 journalists killed in the past ten years call for reactions commensurate with the urgency of this situation. A special representative of the UN secretary-general for the safety of journalists must be appointed without delay.”
RSF will inaugurate a new monument to journalists “Missing reporters' monument”. Located on the left as you enter the memorial garden, it was created at the request of the families of reporters and photographers who went missing while on assignment. It shows the silhouette of a reporter-photographer, symbolizing the physical absence of those whose bodies were never found and of whom the memories will never fade in part because they could not be mourned properly.
See more : Prix Bayeux-Calvados's website
