UNITED NATIONS: Mariane Pearl, wife of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl killed in Pakistan in 2002, has said that the UN plan of action on safety of journalists and the issue of impunity should be vigorously implemented on the ground.

She told the UN Security Council which was debating protection of journalists in discharge of their duties that “these rhetorical commitments are welcome, but we need to see more concerted efforts on the ground to actually implement them”.

Ms Pearl said: “Governments are using terrorism charges as an excuse to clamp down on dissent and criticism. Journalists are routinely targeted and killed for their reporting on terrorist groups, while others are censored or imprisoned by governments seeking to respond to the very same threat.”

Already this year more than 25 journalists have been killed, the majority of them murdered. Member states have agreed to reduce impunity/ through resolutions on the safety of journalists/ and the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.

She observed that journalists “have become targets. Insurgent groups no longer use reporters to transmit news, but instead kidnap them to make news. They treat us as enemy combatants and spies. This is our everyday reality”.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2015

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