| Global indicator description |
For this indicator, killing includes intentional homicide and other arbitrary deprivation of life, as formulated in Article 6(1) ICCPR. Enforced disappearance is defined as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law (International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adapted to account for disappearances perpetrated by non-State actors). Arbitrary detention is detention without due process and safeguards, as outlined in Article 9(1) ICCPR. Torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity (Convention against Torture). Assault means physical attack against the body of another person resulting in serious bodily injury. Human rights defenders is a term used to describe people who, individually or with others, act to promote or protect human rights. Human rights defenders are identified above all by what they do and it is through a description of their actions and of some of the contexts in which they work that the term can best be explained. The definition of human rights defenders may include journalists and trade unionists, but each individual case is counted only once. Other examples may include a student campaigning to end torture in prisons, a politician who takes a stand against endemic corruption or witnesses in court cases on human rights abuses. Journalists cover 'journalists, media workers and social media producers who generate a significant amount of public-interest journalism.' This concepualisation, has been agreed by UNESCO Member States, and could include a wide range of actors, including professional full-time reporters and analysts, foreign correspondents and local journalists, as well as bloggers and other social media producers who engage in forms of self-publication in print, on the Internet or elsewhere, journalists from 'traditional media' and those who work across multiple media. The term "trade unionist" refers to an individual employed or accredited by a trade union, and other elected representatives of workers, including workers in the informal sector. The indicator is calculated as the total number of reported cases of killing, disappearance, arbitrary detention, assault and torture of journalists, trade unionists or human rights defenders during the reporting period which are verified by an independent entity (in this case OHCHR and UNESCO).
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