JournalismPakistan.com
April 16, 2014

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has shown a slight improvement on the 2014 Global Impunity Index spotlighting countries where journalists are killed and the killers go free.

The updated index of the Committee to Protect Journalists released Wednesday said the improvement was because of the recent convictions of six men for the killing of Geo Television reporter Wali Khan Babar. Pakistan ranks 9 this year with an Impunity Index Rating of 0.123 unsolved journalist murders per million inhabitants while last year the country ranked 8th with a rating of 0.130.

However, the CPJ pointed out that with two convicts in Wali Babar case still at large and no official identification of the mastermind, justice is far from complete.

"A hard-won watershed - at least five people linked to the case were also murdered, including witnesses, informants, and investigators - the case has opened the door to possible prosecutions in other unsolved murders."

The CPJ said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told its mission that visited last month he would consider implementing a wide range of measures based on lessons learned in Babar’s case, including moving trial venues to safer locations and appointing special prosecutors to ensure justice in more than 20 journalist murders CPJ has recorded over the last decade.

In the meantime, perpetrators of violent attacks against journalists, who range from banned militant groups like the Taliban to political groups, use unchecked violence against journalists to censor and control coverage.

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