Informed 12


International No to impunity


Awil Mohamoud, NUJ campaigns & communications officer, reports on the NUJ’s public event on 3 November.


IFJ


On 3 November, the NUJ marked International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists with an online speaker event featuring trade unionists and international law experts. Te public event provided an opportunity to collectively mourn our fallen colleagues and demand accountability for their deaths Rebecca Long-Bailey, MP and co- chair of the NUJ parliamentary group, condemned the “shocking regularity” with which journalists around the world continue to be targeted and murdered for doing their jobs. Records from the International


Federation of Journalists (IFJ) show at least 111 journalists and media professionals were killed in 2025, the deadliest since records began. Long-Bailey said: “Despite the gravely serious nature of these crimes, those responsible are oſten leſt unpunished. Te time to act is now.” Te UN Plan of Action for the Safety of Journalists, adopted in 2012, represents a “step in the right direction” but “implementation has been patchy at best,” she added. “It’s clear to me that we need a new binding framework.” Te IFJ has draſted and spearheaded


calls for the implementation of a specific UN Convention on the safety and protection of journalists - a move backed by many, including delegates at the TUC Congress this year. Anthony Bellanger, IFJ general


secretary, said that a UN Convention would be groundbreaking in that it would be a “binding instrument, not another declaration of intent.” It would place a requirement on states to protect journalists in all circumstances, investigate every crime, and prosecute


and media workers killed over the last two years - at least 226 according to IFJ figures - is “shocking” and “indicative of the impunity with which Israel is operating,” Robinson said. She called the failure to add these


killings to the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister “a real oversight.” Efforts are underway to submit additional evidence to the ICC and apply pressure on the prosecutor to take action, she added. Robinson also addressed threats


Anthony Bellanger Aid for Gaza


Journalists in Gaza need your help to do their job in desperate circumstances. Te IFJ is


supplying vital equipment and aid. Please donate to its safety fund.


Branches can email jackiec@nuj. org to transfer funds from their management allowances.


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the perpetrators. While bringing this into fruition is not a simple process, Bellanger vowed to “continue this fight until no crime against a journalist goes unpunished because without truth, there is no freedom and without freedom, there is no democracy.” Jennifer Robinson, human rights barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, discussed some of the failings of the international law system in holding accountable those who continue to target journalists around the world. Te number of Palestinian journalists


to journalists in the UK as a result of Iranian transnational oppression. She has represented many of those impacted since 2017, when the Iranian government launched a mass criminal investigation into 152 BBC Persian staff for their reporting. Robinson ended by calling for greater action and accountability from the UN and UK government. Séamus Dooley, NUJ assistant general


secretary, apportioned the extensive hate and misogyny journalists face online to the negligence of the tech giants, which refuse to accept that it is their responsibility to take action. Focusing on lessons in Northern


Ireland, he also raised the “scandalous treatment” of Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. Dooley also condemned the abuse of journalists by state actors, citing the case of Sami Hamdi, who was recently arrested in the US under anti-terrorism legislation for expressing uncomfortable opinions on Gaza. Before closing with a minute of silence, Dooley said: “Te war on journalism is a war on truth. What we stand for is not some sort of selfish interest because we are special, but because we are a bulwark in the war against truth, against tyranny.” He invoked the powerful words of the


great Welsh commentator Raymond Williams, “Te media must be the arrow; not the target.”


Te NUJ continues to campaign on and raise the issue of journalist safety with the union’s cross-party parliamentary group.


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