Marie Colvin And The Impunity For Attacks On Journalists

This story starts with the account of a video that captures the final moments of Marie Colvin (56), a celebrated journalist for the Sunday Times of London, and French photographer Rémi Ochlik (28). The two were struck by a rocket on the morning of February 22, 2012, in Homs, Syria.

The Colvin family filed the video and nearly 2,000 pages of documents as part of a federal civil lawsuit against the Syrian government. The Center for Justice & Accountability, a San Francisco-based human rights group, built the case following a six-year investigation.

The documents also offer an account of the death of French journalist Gilles Jacquier, who, according to one regime defector, was assassinated in a government attack staged to look like a rebel assault while Jacquier was reporting in Syria under official approval.

Journalists Johnny Dwyer and Ryan Gallagher write about this for The Intercept, founded in 2013 after NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden came forward with revelations of mass surveillance. The media organisation is dedicated to fearless, adversarial journalism.

Colvin, Ochlik and other Western journalists were called 'spies' planted by Western governments in an official regime media post published by the state-run General Organisation of Radio and TV on February 26, 2012.

The Syrian Deputy Minister of Defense Assef Shawkat insisted that foreign media like Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and CNN collaborated with terrorists, he told an observer with the Arab League. "He even referred to the New York Times and the Washington Post as 'terrorist newspapers.'"

Nerma Jelacic, deputy director of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, an investigative group, called the civil litigation on behalf of Colvin an "important symbolic step".

Unfortunately, U.N. Rapporteur David Kaye said: "Impunity for attacks on journalists is practically complete."