The European Federation of Journalists welcomes today the adoption of a report on the Protection of Media Freedom in Europe by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) but warns about the worrying trends on press freedom in Europe. “Although we welcome the adoption of the report, it highlighted again the worrying trends in Europe on press freedom particularly in countries where serious cases of press freedom violations are prominent,” said Mogens Blicher Bjerregård. “Countries highlighted in the report including Azerbaijan, Hungary, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine should step up their efforts in improving their press freedom records.” emphasised…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) welcomes the adoption of a new resolution by the European Parliament on freedom of expression in Turkey. The resolution adopted (551 votes in favour, 11 against and 31 abstentions) by members of the European Parliament (MEP) condemned the police raids on 14 December 2014 against Zaman newspaper and Samanyolu TV and the detention of a number of journalists and media representatives in Turkey. They recalled that a free and pluralistic press is the core of a democratic system and stressed that judicial independence was not respected in the country.”The government’s response to the allegations…

The European Federation of Journalists attended the conference “Je suis Charlie-Media Freedom in the EU and South Eastern Europe” at the European Parliament. Hosted by Ulrike LUNACEK, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Green Party, in cooperation with the Italian based Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (OBC) the meeting discussed threats on media freedom, in particular within the context of the project “safety net for European journalists presented by OBC. Tanja FAJON, Member of the European Parliament, warned about excessive security measures taken by European governments after the Charlie Hebdo’s attack. “In this moment, the government’s responsibility is to strengthen solidarity and…