Journalists in armed conflicts: "Murdering them is war crime"
“My close friend, he was killed,” said Anna Akage, a freelance journalist from Kyiv, Ukraine. “He was killed, direct shot, through his vest, with the sign ‘PRESS’ in big letters on it.”
She’s speaking about Maks Levin, a 40-year-old Ukrainian freelance photojournalist and documentary filmmaker who was found dead in Huta-Mezhyhirska, a village near Kyiv. Like many others, he was reporting on the war in Ukraine. Like 12 others – so far – he lost his life doing so.
The numbers cited are those compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an NGO based in New York. In their database, most of the journalists who died in Ukraine have been categorised as ‘died in crossfire’. But, according to Jennifer Dunham, Deputy Editorial Director at CPJ, “more than one case is still being investigated.” If enough evidence is found, they might be categorized as ‘murdered’ instead. A small change in the data, but one with huge real-life implications.
This is because journalists don’t go to the front lines completely exposed. In addition to bulletproof vests, they have the law on their side. “The Geneva Conventions say that journalists in armed conflicts are civilians, and so attacking or murdering them is a war crime,” said Paul Coppin, Head of the Legal Desk at Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), an NGO based in Paris.
The Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions are international treaties that contain “the most important rules limiting the barbarity of war.” They were adopted in 1949, and were followed by two additional protocols in 1977, which strengthen the protection of victims of international (Protocol I) and non-international (Protocol II) armed conflicts. These additional protocols, for the first time, contained two explicit references to media personnel and journalists.
This doesn’t seem like a lot, but “in order to perceive the full scope of protection granted to journalists under humanitarian law one simply has to substitute the word ‘civilian’ as it is used throughout the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols with the word ‘journalist’,” Robin Geiss, an international humanitarian law expert and Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, told the ICRC.
“Inasmuch as they are civilians, journalists are protected under international humanitarian law against direct attacks unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities... Intentionally directing an attack against a civilian – whether in an international or in a non-international armed conflict – amounts to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Geiss explained.
RSF has, thus far, filed six complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which detail deliberate Russian military attacks on journalists. “All together, we have 36 events that are qualifiable as war crimes, concerning at least 92 journalists and 12 media infrastructures,” Coppin explained.
The sixth complaint was filed on June 23, and it contains only one case: that of Maks Levin. According to Coppin, RSF has “managed to find hard evidence showing that Russian forces are directly responsible for what we can qualify as an execution.”
The complaints were brought to ICC with the aim of starting an investigation. “We believe it justifies a special focus... because targeting [journalists] is really targeting the free flow of information of the conflict, and of other war crimes being committed,” Coppin said.
Coppin can’t recall whether a State has ever been brought to court for the murder of a journalist as a war crime. But that doesn’t mean these crimes have never been committed.
War crimes
At least 39 out of 923 journalists who were murdered since 1992 could constitute as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, an investigation using the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) database has revealed.
The country with the highest numbers of murdered journalists that could constitute as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, is Rwanda. Most of these took place in 1994, during the Rwandan Civil War.
The Angolan Civil War, although not as well known, also claimed a lot of journalists’ lives. A total of 5 could constitute as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Recent civil wars in Syria and Sri Lanka have ensured these States also rank high: 4 cases were found in each, the most well-known one being War Correspondent Marie Colvin. The Sri Lankan Civil War is still being investigated for war crimes, and the Syrian Civil War is still ongoing, which means these numbers could increase.
Click here to use the interactive version
To determine the number of murdered journalists that could constitute as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, several requirements need to be met. First, it must be a targeted attack.
The CPJ database categorizes killed journalists by type of death: murder, crossfire, or died while working on a dangerous assignment. “According to our methodology, we classify journalists who we have confirmed to be targeted, as murdered,” Dunham explained.
The second requirement is a broad one: the journalist must be a) murdered during an armed conflict, b) reporting on said conflict, and c) be murdered by an official from the State(s) involved. Third, the State(s) involved must have ratified the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols at the time of the murder. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly: the Geneva Conventions must apply to the conflict in question.
The armed conflicts in Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Syria are well-known and have been widely covered by journalists, so it was not hard to determine whether these cases met the requirements. Others – smaller under-reported wars or longer ‘forgotten’ conflicts – were more difficult. Here, the information provided by the CPJ for each individual journalist was consulted.
Ricardo de Mello, for example, was reporting on the civil war in Angola. As reported by the CPJ, military officials had told de Mello “to stop writing about the war” shortly before he was murdered.
Journalists aren’t safe
The number of murdered journalists that could constitute as a violation of the Geneva Conventions is 39. But – as of May 13, 2022 – the total number of murdered journalists since 1992 stands much higher: 923. Add in those who were killed in crossfire, or during a dangerous assignment, and the number is 1443.
Click here to use the interactive version
One year immediately stands out: 2009. It isn’t known for any large armed conflicts. Rather, the high number is the result of the Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines. Described as the “deadliest event for the press ever recorded” by CPJ, it claimed the lives of 58 people – 30 of them were journalists, and another 2 were media support workers. They had been travelling in the Maguindanao province, intending to file candidacy papers for a local politician, when they were barbarically murdered by a rival political clan.
Other noteworthy years are 1994, 2012 and 2013. 1994 was the year the aforementioned Rwandan Civil War ended, culminating in the Rwandan Genocide. Many journalists were killed as part of this genocide, others lost their lives reporting on it. The high numbers in the years 2012 and 2013 are the result of the wars in Syria, Iraq, and Somalia.
There seemed to be a downward trend – for a while. But in the first 6 months of 2022, there were almost as many journalist killings as there were in 2021.
“We actually saw a decrease in killings of journalists, or overall journalists’ deaths, in recent years but it’s been going up this year,” Dunham said. “Not just because of Ukraine, there have been a lot of killings in Mexico.”
Mexico: dying to tell the truth
Most of this year’s killings were in Ukraine, but most murders were in Mexico – as was also the case in 2021, 2019 and 2017. According to CPJ’s data, Mexico ranks fourth in the world when it comes to the total number of journalists that were killed (64) and third in the world when it comes to the total number of journalists murdered (60).
Mexican journalists – especially local reporters – are under threat from organized crime hitmen, (local) government officials, and other (often anonymous) sources. The constant intimidation scares some journalists out of the profession, and forces others to self-censor, limiting what Mexicans can read and see about their country.
With the December 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), there was hope for much-needed reforms. But the opposite seems to have happened.
“What happens right now in Mexico, which makes life much harder for journalists, is that Mexico’s president has a three-hour press conference every morning, from 7AM to 10AM. He often uses that time to criticize and bash against journalists,” explained Jéronimo Gonzáles, a Mexican journalist based in London, writing for Mexico’s English newspaper Mexico Today.
“He’s like Trump, saying they are all liars,” said César Barboza, a former Economics Editor at Business Insider México in Mexico City.
Both journalists are highly aware of their country’s safety situation and have either been threatened and/or censored themselves, or they know someone who was.
“I was lucky because I was reporting on business and finance – so the events that I went to weren’t high risk,” Barboza said. “But I didn’t have the control to publish everything I wanted; the editors will correct many things. If they didn’t feel comfortable with it because they thought the government might say something, they wouldn’t publish it all.”
The situation is a lot worse for local journalists, especially those investigating and reporting on local corruption. There’s no safety protocol or equipment available to protect them.
On March 26, 2019, broadcast journalist Maria Guadalupe Lourdes Maldonado López attended President AMLO’s daily press conference, told him she fears for her life and asked for the State’s protection. No action was taken, and she was shot dead in her car two years later in Tijuana.
Gonzáles views the case as exemplary. “That’s the most blatant case of a journalist saying, ‘they want to kill me’, and the authorities doing nothing about it,” he said. It’s the type of case that makes other journalists self-censor, or even give up on journalism all together. “What that generates, is that no one wants to become a journalist in that city. You’d have to be completely crazy.”
The war in Ukraine has claimed the lives of many journalists, but so have various other armed conflicts and wars.
The heatmap below shows that the first few months of an armed conflict, invasion, or war, are paired with a higher number of killed journalists. More journalists will report on the battles, which means more journalists are at risk of being attacked and/or killed.
For example, in late 2001, shortly after 9/11, the US invaded Afghanistan. Many journalists reported on it, and many died: a total of 9 that year. The same happened in March 2003, when the US invaded Iraq. A total of 11 journalists died reporting on the war that year, most of them in April. The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, but escalated in 2012, claiming the lives of 31 journalists.
When an armed conflict or war has been going on for a while, it tends to receive less coverage. This too is the case for the war in Ukraine. “I can see my country disappearing from the front page,” said Akage.
“A lot of foreigners, when they hear I’m from Ukraine, they say ‘Ooh I stopped reading the news a few weeks ago because it’s too much, people are dying, I don’t see any positive changes, so I cannot read this anymore’,” she said. “People stop reading, so people [journalists] stop writing. It’s normal.”
Training and preparation
In preparation for covering an armed conflict or other hostile environment, most journalists receive training. But that wasn’t always the case.
“I had been a conflict reporter for a number of years and when I started, hostile environment training wasn’t available,” said Frank Smyth, Executive Director of Global Journalist Security (GJS), based in Washington, D.C. Smyth instead got certified as an Emergency Medical Technician, which he described as “somewhat useful, but a lot of what they teach you is quite irrelevant [for journalists].”
Instead, he set up GJS in 2011, which provides training courses for journalists, NGO professionals, and other civilians operating in moderate and high-risk environments.
They saw an uptick in bookings for their best-selling ‘Hostile Environment and First Aid Training’ 3-day course when the war in Ukraine started. In this course, journalists are trained in emergency first-aid, risk reduction, how to properly use protective equipment, tactical stress management, emotional self-care, and more.
But even with preparation, a journalist’ safety is at risk.
“I’ve been attacked a few times,” said Thomas R. Lansner, a media consultant, visiting professor at Sciences Po, and former journalist who was based in Kampala, New Delhi and Manila in the 1990s. “A few times I was attacked while taking photographs, I was manhandled, physically attacked, or struck. But [I’ve] never been seriously harmed.”
He’s one of the luckier ones. Although the majority of killed journalists are murdered, a large number die in crossfire or on a dangerous assignment.
The CPJ defines ‘Dangerous Assignment’ as: “deaths while covering a demonstration, riot, clashes between rival groups, mob situations; this includes assignments which are not expected to entail physical risk but turn violent unexpectedly.”
It’s this type of unexpected violence that journalists should be wary of. “One of the key things journalists should have is situational awareness... When do you show your press card, when do you hide it?” Lansner explained. “I’ve had situations where I walked up and said ‘Press! Press!’ And other times, I’m blending in and wearing disguise.”
Lansner also tells journalists to never travel alone (“A thing I did all the time, which I recognize now was probably silly”) and to inform your office of where you’re going to be. It’s also recommended to work with fixers and locals. “But,” Smyth adds, “You need to make sure there are no surprises, know who your fixer is... Whether they are Hutu or Tutsi in Rwanda is very important, or whether they are Sunni or Shia in a nation like Iraq.”
Lansner recalls a particular situation where the advice of a local may have saved his life. “In Afghanistan, I travelled with the Afghan guerillas, dressed up as one of them,” he described. “When we started going out on a little walk, they said, ‘take off your specs’. And I said, ‘well why, I’m pretty near-sighted, and I want to see what happens.’ They said, ‘well the snipers shoot the people with specs first,’ they replied. I got them off pretty quickly then.”
“The safest crime”
The murdering of journalists has often been described as “the safest crime” due to the extremely high levels of impunity. Almost every individual interviewed for this story cited the same figure: in 8 out of 10 cases, the murderer of a journalist goes free.
It’s often a legal problem, both at the national and international level. “The main problem right now is implementation of existing laws that we do have, really in abundance – also at the national level in the form of national action plans,” Annina Claesson, a Consultant for UNESCO’s Section on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists, explained.
She also mentions international agreements, such as The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which contains Article 19, i.e. the right to freedom of expression. “These are not necessarily binding laws, but that doesn’t mean that they are not commitments, and that they cannot be used for advocacy.”
It's important because not only is the murder of a journalist “a murder of an individual, which is heinous enough in itself, but it’s also sort of a collective harm that’s being done. You’re losing an additional voice in the public sphere and the media,” said Claesson.
UNESCO calls attention to the issue of impunity every year on November 2nd, the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. It’s one of their main advocacy instruments since they don’t have the ability to ‘name and shame’.
“UNESCO is handbound in terms of calling out state actors.... We can’t name and shame directly, that is not our role,” Claesson explained.
CPJ can, and they do. Every year, they publish a list of the ten most censored countries. Together with two other press freedom NGOs – RSF and Free Press Unlimited – CPJ also recently set up a People’s Tribunal, in order to investigate cold cases.
The People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists
The People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists is organized by Free Press Unlimited (based in Amsterdam), CPJ and RSF, as part of the initiative ‘A Safer World For The Truth.’ It does not have formal legal authority, and thus derives its power from the participants and the public character and integrity of the proceedings.
It has two aims. Firstly, to give family, friends, and colleagues their day in court. “In the majority of these cases, the likelihood of these families ever going to a real court is very slim,” explained Jasmijn de Zeeuw, a Legal Expert at Free Press Unlimited and Register of the Tribunal. The second aim is to discuss the cases “as part of a larger system.”
There were three cases: the Sri Lanka case of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the Syria case of Nabil Al-Sharbaji, and the Mexico case of Miguel Ángel López Velasco. They were selected because they “represent the contexts in which journalists are most often murdered.”
The People’s Tribunal can’t convict anyone, but they can raise awareness. This was definitely the case, according to de Zeeuw. “We’ve been pleasantly surprised with how much response we’ve had,” she said. “We had a lot of press attention in Sri Lanka. We also had to take a lot of security measures there to protect witnesses because we received serious indications from the Sri Lankan security service that they would follow people to the hearing and intimidate them.”
It's not known whether the Tribunal will take on more cases. “For now, it’s just these three,” de Zeeuw said. “We hope for more but it’s a huge logistical exercise.”
The numbers are increasing
Since the investigation for this story was started, at least 5 more journalists have been killed. This includes journalists reporting on the war in Ukraine, as well as investigative journalist Dom Phillips who was recently found dead in Brazil.
A total of 12 journalists have been killed in Ukraine, all of whom are categorized by the CPJ as ‘died in crossfire’ or ‘died on a dangerous assignment.’ As mentioned before, some of these are still being investigated. So are the three additional cases categorized as ‘unconfirmed’. According to CPJ, it’s difficult to determine whether these individuals were killed because of their work as a journalist, or whether they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I hope we can get more information on those but there’s still a lot up in the air, we may never be able to,” Dunham said.
Akage, although not reporting on Ukraine from the front lines, is just as committed to verify and share information about the war. After a long and complicated process of getting her family and dog out of the country, she couldn’t wait to continue reporting. “I really was waiting for the moment I can finally wash and sit [in front of the] computer and start writing.” she said.
Reporting on the war is not just a job for her, it’s a way to do something for her country. She describes her fellow Ukrainian journalists as “patriotic” and commends every war reporter out there.
“These people are crazy. Maks was crazy,” Akage said.
“But,” she adds, “without them, we do not know what is happening. Without their photos, their reporting, we don’t understand what a war looks like.”
Maks Levin | Photo: Committee to Protect Journalists
