Reporters Without Borders denounces violence over women's issues
Those who report on women's rights for the media are often exposed to violence: Reporters Without Borders (ROG) criticizes this in a report presented in Paris on Monday.
The journalists' organization counted more than 60 cases in more than 20 countries over the past two years. They ranged from threats via the Internet to murder. According to the report, violence against journalists who deal with women's rights issues is partly carried out by religiously motivated groups, such as the radical Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan or anti-abortion activists in the United States. However, criminal groups or authoritarian governments are also behind some of this. According to Reporters Without Borders, countries such as China, Turkey and Egypt lead the negative list.
More than ten percent of the cases documented by ROG were murders, such as the 2017 murder of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, who had reported on women killed in the city of Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border. ROG also mentions the case of Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh. The editor-in-chief of a feminist magazine was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle.
The most widespread, according to the report, are insults or threats via the Internet, in addition to physical violence against women (28 percent of cases). They account for 43 percent of documented cases. "This phenomenon is borderless, affecting poor countries as well as the most democratic ones," Reporters Without Borders said. In the U.S., according to the report, it is mainly journalists who cover abortion who are affected.
Reporters Without Borders speaks of a high number of unreported cases. The organization recommends, among other things, that the perpetrators be held more firmly accountable and that attention be drawn to violence against journalists at the UN level. (SDA)
