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CPJ's annual Impunity Index, first published in 2008, identifies countries where journalists are murdered regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. For this latest index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred from January 1, 2002, through December 31, 2011, and that remain unsolved. Only the 12 nations in the world with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index. Cases are considered unsolved when no convictions have been won.

Iraq ranked worst on CPJ's Impunity Index for the fifth consecutive year and, with more than 90 unsolved murders, its impunity rating dwarfs that of every other nation. Most of the murders occurred as Iraq was immersed in war, but even now, as authorities claim stability, they have failed to bring justice in a single case. Somalia, gripped by insurgency and crippled by the lack of an effective central government, ranks second worst with 11 unsolved murders. In Sri Lanka, ranked fourth worst, authorities have failed to win convictions in the murders of nine journalists—all of whom reported critically about President Mahinda Rajapaksa's administration. Amid these conflict-ridden nations is a much different place, the Philippines, which is ranked third worst. Despite the Philippines' tradition of press freedom, the country's dysfunctional and corrupt criminal justice system has failed to bring justice in 55 journalist murders in the past decade.

Several countries' ratings remained largely static, underscoring how entrenched the culture of impunity can be.

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Pakistani reporter Saleem Shahzad was murdered after reporting that Al-Qaeda was behind this May 2011 attack on a Karachi naval base. (Reuters/Athar Hussain)

CPJ research shows that deadly, unpunished violence against journalists often leads to vast self-censorship in the rest of the press corps.

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Among the other findings in CPJ's Impunity Index:

• Local journalists are the victims in the vast majority of unsolved cases. Only 13 of the 247 cases on the index involved journalists working outside their own country.
• Political reporting was the most dangerous beat. Thirty percent of the victims included on CPJ's index covered political news.
• Even in conflict zones, the targeted killing of journalists is common. About 28 percent of journalists on the index were covering armed conflict when they were murdered.
• Threats are a strong indicator of potential deadly violence. In more than 40 percent of cases reviewed for the index, victims received death threats prior to their murders.
• Killers often try to send a chilling message to the rest of the press corps. In one out of five cases in the index, the victims were tortured before being killed.

For a detailed explanation of CPJ's methodology, click here.