Ban Ki-moon calls for 'plan of action' to protect journalists

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The general secretary of the United Nations has called on its agencies to come together and develop a joint "plan of action" to help improve protections for journalists and tackle impunity. The speech from Ban Ki-moon was made to a UN inter-agency meeting on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity in France yesterday (13 September), delivered by under-secretary-general for communications and public information Kiyo Akasaka. According to a concept document by UNESCO, the meeting was part of an effort to formulate a joint approach when tackling the protection of journalists. UN agencies will meet again today to prepare their plan of action following yesterday's debate. Suggestions put forward by UNESCO for how to tackle the issues, as outlined in its concept document, include establishing a co-ordinated information-sharing mechanism, an early warning system and a set of best-practices. The oeganisation also proposes that the agencies establish ways they can work with non-governmental organisations which are dedicated to the safety of journalists, such as the International News Safety Institute, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists. The group also suggested that agencies should urge news outlets to develop and sustain safety provisions "regardless of whether their staff are covering domestic stories such as crime and corruption, demonstrations, environmental and health issues or international armed conflict". "I urge the entities of the UN system to join forces, explore what you can do individually and collectively, and come up with a common approach that will help protect journalists and fight impunity for their killers," the general secretary's address said. "The press can never be free if journalists and media workers are under attack," he added. "Those who murder, kidnap, harass, arrest or intimidate journalists not only stop the free flow of information, they stifle the ability of millions of people to have their stories told. "Quite apart from the violence and the suffering such crimes bring, I am also dismayed when they are not thoroughly investigated and prosecuted. Only by putting an end to impunity can we break this vicious cycle." In June the Committee to Protect Journalists released its latest impunity index. Iraq was ranked at the top with none of the 92 killings of journalists recorded in Iraq in the past decade having been solved.