Journalists
are often the first to expose the reality of war and the
suffering of vulnerable people. But media workers are also
targets. What can humanitarians do to help keep them safe — and
get the story out?
On the early afternoon of 24 May 2012, radio
journalist Ahmed Addow Anshur was walking through the Suuq
Bo’le, a market in the Dharkenley district of Mogadishu,
Somalia, when he was shot and killed by four men who witnesses
say quickly sped off on motorcycles.
Anshur died instantly from bullet wounds to
the head and the chest, making him the sixth Somali journalist
murdered in the country this year. If the current trend continues,
2012 could become one of the worst years for Somali journalists
since 2009, when nine reporters were killed.
“The violence
towards journalists gets worse when there is a political
transition,” says Mohamed Ibrahim, a freelance Somali
journalist who also works as a New York Times correspondent
and is secretary general of the National Union of Somali
Journalists (NUSOJ).
“When the situation becomes very political,
each group tries to manipulate the media by threatening or
killing journalists,” he says. “Also,
there are gangs not related to any political factions that
could be involved in these killings as well.”
As with most of the attacks on journalists
here, the identity of Anshur’s killers is unknown and
most violent crimes against journalists go unsolved. According
to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), based in New
York, 41 journalists have been killed in Somalia since 1992,
making it the most dangerous country on the African continent
for media workers.
On the murky front line of modern conflict,
it’s local
journalists such as Anshur who are most at risk. War reporters
who move from country to country face extreme dangers — as
the numbers killed since 2011 during violence in Libya and
Syria attest. But local reporters, as well as the ‘fixers’,
translators, drivers and media workers who help international
war reporters, make up the bulk of media workers killed.
“Most of the journalists who are killed are local reporters covering
local stories,” says Mohammed Keita, who directs operations in Africa
for the CPJ. “They are far more vulnerable than international journalists
because they have little institutional support and they live and work in countries
where the rule of law is not very strong.”
Life expectancy: 24 hours
This climate of fear has a chilling effect on those trying
to bear witness to the humanitarian consequences of conflict
or insecurity. “Our life expectancy is 24 hours — renewable.” That’s
how Solange Lusiku describes the situation for journalists
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where eight
journalists have been killed since 2006.
A champion of the free press, Lusiku is the editor-in-chief
and publisher of Le Souverain, an independent newspaper in
Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province in eastern DRC,
a region plagued by violence. Like many journalists and press
advocates, Lusiku says a free press is not only vital to
democracy and human rights, but to any effective humanitarian
response.
“Just as the press contributes to the promotion of
democracy, it also promotes humanitarian assistance,” she
says. “Humanitarian actors
need the press to present facts requiring urgent intervention
or to alert people about a dangerous and disastrous situation — even
to inform the public about the work they have done.”
While
reporters often need humanitarian groups for mobility, statistics
and access to dangerous areas, Lusiku says relief agencies
also need journalists. “In situations of conflict,
we need an independent press in order to have reliable information
that has been neither censored nor self-censored,” she
adds. “This also allows humanitarians to guide and
plan their interventions.”
This is why, maintains CPJ’s Keita,
humanitarian groups should advocate for the protection of
journalists. During natural crises such as the ongoing drought
in the Sahel or Horn of Africa, the state of media freedom
in the affected countries should be part of the discussion,
Keita argues.
“If a government is engaged in downplaying
the extent of the crisis in the name of protecting the image
of the country, and they can manipulate data about the humanitarian
crisis, it will also have an impact on the response,” he
says.
Humanitarian responsibility?
If this is so, what is the role and
responsibility of humanitarian organizations towards the
press? And do the laws governing armed conflict adequately
protect those who risk their lives to get the news out about
the realities of war or other dangerous emergencies?
Recent events, from high-profile deaths and kidnappings
of journalists in Afghanistan, Colombia, Libya, Pakistan
and Syria to the growing global body count (25 killed as
of mid-June 2012 by violent means, according to CPJ), suggest
that journalists are increasingly vulnerable to attack in
places where humanitarian reporting is desperately needed.
Since 1992, in fact, CPJ has documented 919 cases in which
journalists were killed due to acts of violence. Of those,
70 per cent were murdered, 18 per cent caught in the crossfire
during combat and 12 per cent killed by violence while on
dangerous assignments.
Numerous national and global organizations (including CPJ,
Reporters Sans Frontières and the International Federation
of Journalists) campaign vigorously for press freedom and
greater protection for journalists. Most offer training and
guidelines for journalists on how to stay safe while on dangerous
missions and they publicly push for prosecutions — even
launching their own investigations — of crimes against
media workers.
An emblem for the press?
Some press groups argue that it’s time for new, stronger
protections — even a special press emblem — that
would be codified by new provisions in international humanitarian
law (IHL).
At an international conference for the protection of journalists
in January, Murad al-Sharif, deputy secretary-general of
the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), reiterated his organization’s
call for a new international convention to protect journalists.
“What’s essential today is to conclude a treaty that ensures media
professionals around the world are treated fairly,” says
al-Sharif, who advocates for a treaty that could provide
a system for monitoring violations and prosecution of those
who target journalists.
Because journalists often are obliged
to put themselves in harm’s way to do their jobs, al-Sharif says they need
special status and protection beyond what is already afforded
to them as civilians under the Geneva Conventions and Additional
Protocols (see sidebar). The PEC, created in 2004, also believes
a special emblem for reporters could help reduce unintentional
deaths of journalists during combat.
The call for a new convention is not
universal, however. In fact, many media support groups and
humanitarian organizations argue that what is needed is better
enforcement of existing laws, not more laws.
For these advocates,
a special status or protective category for journalists raises
as many questions as would be solved by new treaty law. For
example: Why just single out journalists? Many professionals,
from sanitation engineers to medical doctors, carry out vital,
life-saving work during conflict. Do they need special protection
as well? And how do we decide who is a journalist, especially
in this era when reporting is often done by ordinary citizens
with a cell-phone camera?
The original authors of Protocol
I had many of these questions in mind when they agreed that
creating a special status for journalists could weaken the
fundamental protections provided to all civilians. “Any
increase in the number of persons with a special status,
necessarily accompanied by an increase of protective signs,
tends to weaken the protective value of each protected status
already accepted,” according
to an ICRC commentary on the discussions leading up to the
1977 protocol.
For the ICRC, which has long recognized the critical role
the media play in exposing the brutal reality of war, the
protection of journalists is part of its overall strategy
to promote better compliance with existing protections for
civilians under IHL.
One of the key objectives of ICRC’s
Four-Year Action Plan for the implementation of international
humanitarian law is to encourage governments to take concrete
action to protect journalists. The suggested efforts range
from enhanced military training to stronger legal remedies “to
ensure that … violations do not go unpunished”.
Because
prosecution for violations of IHL often occurs in military
or civilian courts of countries who have signed the Geneva
Conventions, many legal experts say strengthening national
legal systems is a critical part of ending the impunity that
killers of journalists have generally enjoyed (see page 1).
Staying alive
The real challenge, however, is to prevent
the killing of journalists in the first place. For this reason,
the ICRC offers a variety of services for journalists working
in danger zones. Since 1985, it has provided a hotline for
reporters, news organizations and the family of journalists
who are in trouble.
The organization has also intervened on behalf of reporters
who are trapped, detained, kidnapped or injured. Most recently,
the ICRC served as a neutral intermediary between warring
parties in the safe return on 30 May of Roméo Langlois,
a journalist for the television network France 24, who was
captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in
late April.
When journalists are killed during fighting,
Movement actors often help to recover and return their remains.
The ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, for example, were
involved in repatriating the bodies of American journalist
Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik,
both killed during the bombardment of Homs, Syria in February
2012.
In addition, the ICRC and some Red Cross Red Crescent National
Societies, offer dozens of IHL training sessions each year
for journalists on how to handle concrete events that happen
during conflict.
This year, the ICRC also intends to release a new audiovisual
training tool that, combined with training from ICRC staff,
is designed to help journalists better describe what they
are witnessing, understand when the law is being violated
or upheld and learn how IHL protects their safety.
“The idea is not to turn the journalists into lawyers,” says
Dorothea Krimitsas, ICRC’s deputy head of public relations
who manages the journalists’ hotline
and efforts to bring IHL training to journalists. “The
idea is to help them find the references they
need to navigate the intricacies of international
humanitarian law.”
The humanitarian angle
This type of training can have a direct and important impact
on how news is reported during warfare, says Tania Mehanna,
a veteran reporter who has covered many international conflicts
for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. She has also
attended several ICRC workshops on IHL and journalism.
During her coverage of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and
Lebanon, for example, she was often confronted with tough
choices. One of the questions that came up during each of
those conflicts was how certain weapons — including
cluster bombs and incendiary agents such as napalm and white
phosphorous — were being used.
“When you report on prohibited weapons or those that are allowed, but
only under certain circumstances, this kind of information can be very helpful
when you write your story,” says Mehanna.
“You have to be careful,” she adds. “You
have to know for sure whether particular weapons have in
fact been used because whatever you say is going to be taken
very seriously. Later on, if there are international trials
or tribunals, these stories could be used by the prosecution
or the defendant.”
For journalists in countries such as Somalia, this type
of professional training is sorely needed, says Somali journalist
Mohamed Ibrahim. “Most journalists here are young people
who make very little money — not even enough to take
care of their daily needs,” he says. “And because
there has been two decades of war, there aren’t any
journalism schools or institutes. So most of the Somali journalists
are not aware of how international law, or the norms of Geneva
Conventions, relate to reporting the conflict.”
Raising professional standards and ethics — fostering
the notion that journalists are independent and not taking
sides in politics or the conflict — is another step
that can help make journalism a safer career choice in Somalia,
he says.
In places such as Somalia, Ibrahim says
journalists often report on issues related to international
humanitarian law, whether they intend to or not. A better
understanding of both humanitarian and journalistic principles,
Ibrahim says, could not only help save the lives of journalists — but
also help them get the story out about other vulnerable people
affected by conflict and natural disaster.
“During the
drought, Somali journalists here have really done a lot,
they have really done their best,” says Ibrahim. “But
they need to increase their skills so they know better how
to cope with reporting within this very difficult and dangerous
humanitarian situation.” |
