International Press Institute

• 31 Oct 2020

Why in News

Recently, the International Press Institute (IPI) has highlighted that the impunity with which crimes against journalists are committed continued to rise as governments had failed to probe the cases.

• This move comes ahead of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists which is celebrated on 2^nd November every year.
  
  • The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the day in the General Assembly Resolution of December 2013.
  • It urged the Member States to implement definite measures countering the culture of impunity.
  • The date was chosen in commemoration of the assassination of two French journalists in Mali on 2^nd November 2013.

Key Points

• IPI is a Vienna-based global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists who share a common dedication to quality, independent journalism.
• Formation:
  
  • In 1950, to promote and protect press freedom and to improve the practices of journalism, 34 editors from 15 countries gathered at Columbia University and formed the global organisation.
    
    • The year 2020 marks its 70^th anniversary.
  • The original Secretariat was set up in 1951 in Zürich (Switzerland), which was shifted to London in 1976 and then to Vienna in 1992.
• Objectives:
  
  • To promote conditions that allow journalism to fulfil its public function, the most important of which is the media’s ability to operate free from interference and without fear of retaliation.
  • To defend media freedom and the free flow of news wherever they are threatened.