Online Press Briefing: UNESCO report reveals most journalists’ killings are not brought to justice, and impunity is intensifying

Global progress in ending impunity for killing journalists has gone into reverse according to a new UNESCO report, covering the 2024-2025 period. The report will include the latest available data on impunity rates, which have increased in the last period despite improvements since 2012. UNESCO invites journalists to discover the findings in an embargoed online briefing.

• What? An online briefing in English revealing all the key data and findings of the report under strict embargo until 2nd November.
  
  
• When? Friday 23 October, at 15.00 Central European Time
• Where? Online
• Who? Mariya Gabriel, Assistant Director-General of Communications and Information and Sylvie Coudray, Director of Freedom of Expression, Media Development
• Journalists, please register here to join the press briefing.
  
  

This spike in the rate of impunity can be attributed to the spike in the number of journalists killed in conflict zones around the world. The report will also include data and trends on the number of journalists killed in the examined period, including in conflict zones.

In recent years, journalists have faced mounting risks as press freedom has deteriorated worldwide; escalating attacks, judicial harassment including SLAPPs, arbitrary detention, intimidation and killings have rendered independent reporting increasingly dangerous. The report also analyses the impact of new technological weapons and the threat it poses to journalists.

UNESCO is the lead UN agency for freedom of expression and media freedom and safety. The Director General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity is published every two years, and maps worldwide trends in journalist killings and impunity for this crime, highlighting the greatest risks reporters face and how and why justice is failing victims.

On 2 ^nd November, the International Day Against Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, UNESCO publishes the report and promotes key findings through international media engagement and advocacy activities. Later in the month the report is then presented by the Director General to UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).