Agency :
Bangladesh has ranked 10th in the Global Impunity Index 2017 of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), downgrading from its previous number.
Somalia ranked one among 12 countries where journalists are murdered and their killers yet to be punished, said the survey released on Tuesday.
Among other South Asian countries Pakistan ranked 7 while India ranked 12.
Bangladesh had ranked 11th in 2016 and 12th in 2015. According to the survey, at least seven cases of journalist murder remained unsolved in Bangladesh in the past decade.
It said police arrested a member of the militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team last November who admitted involvement in the murders of two secular bloggers, Niloy Neel and Faisal Arefin Dipan, Since 2015, several suspects have been detained in these and other brutal attacks against secular bloggers and editors.
However, it said only in one case, that of Ahmed Rajib Haider, who was hacked to death in 2013, have the killers been convicted.
In 2015, two assailants stabbed and hacked blogger Avijit Roy to death as he was leaving a book fair in the Dhaka University campus area. Roy’s wife was badly injured in the attack. Avijit, a naturalised US citizen of Bangladeshi origin, wrote blog posts on secular issues including atheism and free expression.
Despite multiple leads and arrests, no one has been prosecuted. CPJ’s Impunity Index calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population.
For this index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between September 1, 2007, and August 31, 2017, and that remain unsolved. Only those nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on this index.
It defines murder as a deliberate attack against a specific journalist in relation to the victim’s work.
Murders make up nearly two thirds of work-related deaths among journalists, according to CPJ research.
Bangladesh has ranked 10th in the Global Impunity Index 2017 of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), downgrading from its previous number.
Somalia ranked one among 12 countries where journalists are murdered and their killers yet to be punished, said the survey released on Tuesday.
Among other South Asian countries Pakistan ranked 7 while India ranked 12.
Bangladesh had ranked 11th in 2016 and 12th in 2015. According to the survey, at least seven cases of journalist murder remained unsolved in Bangladesh in the past decade.
It said police arrested a member of the militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team last November who admitted involvement in the murders of two secular bloggers, Niloy Neel and Faisal Arefin Dipan, Since 2015, several suspects have been detained in these and other brutal attacks against secular bloggers and editors.
However, it said only in one case, that of Ahmed Rajib Haider, who was hacked to death in 2013, have the killers been convicted.
In 2015, two assailants stabbed and hacked blogger Avijit Roy to death as he was leaving a book fair in the Dhaka University campus area. Roy’s wife was badly injured in the attack. Avijit, a naturalised US citizen of Bangladeshi origin, wrote blog posts on secular issues including atheism and free expression.
Despite multiple leads and arrests, no one has been prosecuted. CPJ’s Impunity Index calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population.
For this index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between September 1, 2007, and August 31, 2017, and that remain unsolved. Only those nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on this index.
It defines murder as a deliberate attack against a specific journalist in relation to the victim’s work.
Murders make up nearly two thirds of work-related deaths among journalists, according to CPJ research.
