A movement campaigning to raise awareness of the risks faced by journalists in war zones will launch on the one year anniversary of the deaths of correspondent Marie Colvin and photojournalist Remi Ochlik in Syria.
The ‘A Day Without News?’ campaign will kick off on February 22 and is led by Aidan Sullivan, vice president of Getty Images.
The campaign is designed to be shared through social media and hopes to encourage people to show their support of the cause by adding their name to the list of supporters.
The group aims to develop institutional and legal agendas to stop journalists from being targeted and to investigate and collect evidence to support prosecutions to seek justice for these deaths.
Sullivan said: “It is unacceptable that those looking to report objectively from conflict zones around the world are deliberately singled out, targeted and murdered with impunity, with those responsible for their deaths not facing any repercussions.”
“Without these journalists bearing witness, atrocities committed in war would go unremarked and it is an equal cruelty that their deaths go without justice.
“This is a situation that has to change. We are heading towards a day when it will be too dangerous for journalists to enter into or report from war zones.”
Over the past decade, 945 photojournalists and correspondents have been killed while covering conflict zones with more than half of those deaths not being punished as war crimes.
In 2012 alone 90 journalists were killed while reporting in war zones.
