Impunity for crimes against journalists remains

Audio 04:13

Jean-Baptiste Placca, editorial writer at RFI, in 2020 © RFI / Pierre René-Worms

By: Jean-Baptiste Placca

3 min

In exactly three days, Tuesday November 2, we will commemorate the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

This day was established in 2013 by the United Nations, in tribute to our colleagues Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, kidnapped and then murdered on November 2, 2013 in Kidal, Mali.

Except that, eight years later, impunity remains.

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It remains, indeed, and why deny it, we have it across our throats.

This resolution, you remember, urged states to take specific measures to combat the culture of impunity.

Of course, justice takes its course.

But, eight years later, we are still waiting for it to pass, to mark the end of this double impunity.

Killing journalists in Africa is also a crime against the African peoples.

Because, information, the good information in the service of which were Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, is essential, to get this continent out of underdevelopment.

One of our teachers in journalism school liked to repeat that the African journalist should be a development agent. Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon were certainly not Africans. But, the messenger's skin color is all the less important here as the information they were looking for concerned Africa and was intended primarily for Africans. Later, in professional life, when the teacher, Hervé Bourges, had become a respected friend, we had to deepen the scope of the term development. Beyond the economic well-being of the populations, development, in his mind, also included the peoples' thirst for knowledge, their need for instruction, education, freedom, justice, in short for the rule of law, democracy, good governance, as we would say today.

How does the journalist, whose mission is to inform, turn into a development agent? 

Informing, here, cannot be reduced to reporting raw political facts, sports news, news items, little gossip, “ 

” and other gossip.

This journalism may as well be devolved to the little telegraph operator.

In the treatment he gives to the news, the journalist must also seek out what contributes to the advancement of society.

Sometimes it is simply by the angle of treatment that he chooses that he serves the development. Further investigation, and the treatment of current affairs becomes useful, in the press, on the radio, or on television. Even in so-called developed countries, the journalist implicitly has a vocation of the same type. Without wanting to advertise to anyone, imagine how many times, for more than a century, " 

", by its surveys alone, has done public health work in France! The changes brought about by its surveys make it a valuable agent for the development of the rule of law and democracy.

We are talking about journalism here.

Obviously not social networks and other platforms on which approximations and disinformation have an open table.

For those who want access to reliable information, in order to progress in life with a minimum of solidity, there is still room, a lot of room for journalism and for development. 

Nevertheless, journalists are often killed because they embarrass those in power.

Especially those who cheat with the constitutional commitments made in relation to their peoples.

Journalists are not there to serve the will of a power, or accompany the whims of a potentate.

Except to be only servile griots.

Journalists should not be there to unnecessarily assault leaders, demolish everything that is being built, or blend in with vindictive opposition.

Because then, they would only be sterile detractors, not very credible.

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• 2-November Safety of journalists

• Media

• Freedom of press