A year after the killings of Radio France Internationale (RFI) journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, the international community is marking November 2 as the first UN International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, reports FRANCE 24.
On November 2, 2013, Dupont and Verlon were reporting from the northern Malian town of Kidal when they were abducted by gunmen and murdered.
FRANCE 24 and its sister radio station RFI have launched a special “Imagine a Day Without News” campaign to commemorate the work of journalists and to highlight their security concerns by calling for an end to the climate of impunity surrounding crimes against journalists.
On Sunday, RFI announced the first two winners of the Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon scholarship to a journalist and a news technician below the age of 30 to pursue journalism training in Paris. Rachelle Tessougué and Sidi Mohamed Dicko were awarded the scholarship at a ceremony in the Malian capital of Bamako.
The ceremony came on the first UN International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.
In a statement marking the day, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova noted that, “The threat is grave. On average, one journalist is killed per week, and while fatalities include foreign correspondents, the vast majority of victims are local, covering local stories, living in a climate of impunity. This allows perpetrators to continue attacks without restraint, further crippling the free flow of information. Impunity is poisonous – it leads to self-censorship for fear of reprisal, depriving society of even more sources of significant information.”