Canaries in a coal-mine? What the killings of journalists tell us about future repression
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Author | Anita R Gohdes,Sabine C Carey |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343316680859 |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Research Articles |
Canaries in a coal-mine? What the killings
of journalists tell us about future repression
Anita R Gohdes
Department of Political Science, University of Zurich
Sabine C Carey
School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim
Abstract
An independent press that is free from government censorship is regarded as instrumental to ensuring human
rights protection. Yet governments across the globe often target journalistswhen their reports seem to offend them
or contradict their policies. Can the government’s infringements of the rights of journalists tell us anything about
its wider human rights agenda? The killing of a journalist is a sign of deteriorating respect for human rights. If a
government orders the killing of a journalist, it is willing to use extreme measures to eliminate the threat posed by
the uncontrolled flow of information. If non-state actors murder journalists, it reflects insecurity, which can lead to
a backlash by the government, again triggering state-sponsored repression. To test the argument whether the
killing of journalists is a precursor to increasing repression, we introduce a new global dataset on killings of
journalists between 2002 and 2013 that uses three different sources that track such events across the world. The
new data show that mostly local journalists are targeted and that in most cases the perpetrators remain uncon-
firmed. Particularly in countries with limited repression, human rights conditions are likely to deteriorate in the
two years following the killing of a journalist. When journalists are killed, human rights conditions are unlikely to
improve where standard models of human rights would expect an improvement. Our research underlines the
importance of taking the treatment of journalists seriously, not only because failure to do so endangers their lives
and limits our understanding of events on the ground, but also because their physical safety is an important
precursor of more repression in the future.
Keywords
human rights, journalists, political violence, press freedom, repression
Introduction
Governments across the globe often target journalists
when reports and stories seem to offend them or contra-
dict their policies. In 2015 alone, over 70 journalists
were killed; most of them wrote about political issues.
1
Figure 1 maps the killing of journalists between 2002
and 2013. The darker the shading, the more journalists
were killed during that time period. Syria and Iraq are
among the most dangerous places for journalists, with
162 and 287 journalists, respectively, reportedly killed
between 2002 and 2013. But journalists are not only
targeted in countries that experience a civil war, as in
those two examples. Between 2002 and 2003, members
of the press corps were killed in over 80 countries. To
show that journalists are not only targeted in the most
repressive countries, Figure 2 plots the number of jour-
nalists killed under varying overall human rights condi-
tions. The x-axis represents the Political Terror Scale
Corresponding author:
gohdes@ipz.uzh.ch
1
See Committee to Protect Journalists: https://www.cpj.org/killed/
2015/ (accessed 23 February 2016).
Journal of Peace Research
2017, Vol. 54(2) 157–174
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343316680859
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(PTS; Wood & Gibney, 2010), which captures the
extent of physical integrity rights violations – the higher
the value, the more repressive the regimes. In yellow,
we highlight the killings of journalists that occurred in
years of armed conflict, in red those that took place
outside of armed conflict. Surprisingly, outside of
armed conflict, journalists are mostly killed in countries
where governments show at least some respect for
human rights.
Journalists are frequently targeted for reporting
uncomfortable news, not just during armed conflicts and
not only in already repressive regimes. What does this tell
us about the trajectory of the overall human rights situ-
ation? Can the killing of a journalist act as an indicator
for subsequently increasing repression?
We suggest that the killing of journalists acts as a
precursor for worsening state-sponsored repression –
just as canaries in a coal-mine would be the first to
signal distress if toxic gases had leaked into the mine
and were polluting the air quality for miners. Indepen-
dent journalists will be a thorn in the side of govern-
ments who are attempting to cover up violence, or who
are trying to dominate the public narrative of why these
measures are justified. The killing of a journalist pro-
vides us with information about the government’s will-
ingness to use extreme measures to eliminate potential
dissent and to remain in control. Journalists writing
about organized crime and violence are also often tar-
geted by those whose illegal activities are brought to
light. In those instances, the killing of a journalists can
signal spiraling violence, which often results in more
repressive government behavior. In short, information
about the killings of journalists should be a valuable
indicator of human rights trajectories, highlighting
which countries are at risk of deteriorating human
rights. It can act as an early-warning signal for worsen-
ing repression, enabling policymakers to intervene or
build resilience before violence has escalated.
The killing of journalists should be particularly useful
as an early-warning signal in countries that show some,
but not great, respect for physical integrity rights. For
such countries it is difficult to tell whether they have
‘settled’ in this middle position, whether they are about
to improve their respect for human rights, or whether
they are on the verge of increasing repression. Stable and
secure countries like Canada and Australia are unlikely to
experience a sudden turn for the worse. Similarly,
nobody expects immediate serious improvements of the
bleak human rights conditions in countries embroiled in
conflict and state-sponsored violence, such as in Syria or
Sudan. While structural factors, such as economic devel-
opment or democracy, can identify countries that are
Figure 2. Number of journalists killed, by repression level, and
whether therewas an armed conflict in the sameyear (2002–13)
Figure 1. Number of journalists reported killed between 2002 and 2013
158 journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(2)
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