In response to an increasing number of attacks on journalists and human rights defenders, a group of international experts has called on governments around the world to create a new category of crime: “crime against free expression.”

The Joint Declaration on Crimes Against Free Expression reads in part:

Noting that violence and other crimes against those exercising their right to freedom of expression, including journalists, other media actors and human rights defenders, have a chilling effect on the free flow of information and ideas in society (‘censorship by killing’), and thus represent attacks not only on the victims but on freedom of expression itself, and on the right of everyone to seek and receive information and ideas;

You can read the full declaration here.