On the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day (3 May 2015) and the two events which are going to be organised in Riga and Brussels, Access Info Europe together with the European Federations of Journalists (EFJ), and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have called on the four Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Expression, Pansy Tlakula ( the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Right), Edison Lanza ( Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Organisation of American States), Dunja Mijatović ( OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media) and David Kaye ( United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of…

Today (29/04/2015), police forces in Bulgaria entered to the building of private television channel TV7 in order to impound the television’s property and get off the TV equipment preventing it from broadcasting. Bulgarian citizens were alerted by the increasing number of police forces out of the building. According to the EFJ affiliate in Bulgaria, SBJ or the Union of Bulgarian Journalists, TV staff and journalists are resisting and refused to allow the police to enter the TV headquarter without seeing any judicial order. They have also requested to talk with Kristina Dimitrova, the head of the Bulgarian police called Bailiff. According to the SBJ, this police action is a blatant violation of press…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) today condemned the Luxembourg authorities for accusing the French journalist, Édouard Perrin, of disclosing confidential information of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) about custom made tax deals for multinational corporations known as LuxLeaks. According to the indictment issued by the investigating judge, on 23 April, Perrin was charged for being a “co-author, if not an accomplice, in infractions committed by one of PwC’s former employees”. Ricardo Gutierrez, the EFJ General Secretary said, “It is shameful that the Luxembourg authorities are going after a journalist who has acted entirely in the public interest to publish the information. The authorities…

“The annual Progress Reports produced by the European Commission does not say much about the situation of press freedom and freedom of expression in the candidate countries. Therefore, I call the Commission to better focus on those topics as we need a deeper analysis and development on those important topics, specially regarding the situation in Turkey”, said Guy Verhofstadt, member of the European Parliament and leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe of (ALDE) , during a seminar on Press Freedom in Turkey co-organized on 22/04/2015 by ALDE and the Greens. The liberal MEP’s call to…

Vienna: After the first bargaining round for a collective agreement in the daily and weekly newspaper sector, its supplements and editorial digital services for employed journalists, technical workers and freelances, there has not been any consensus with the Austrian Publishers Association (VÖZ). The chairman of the GPA-djp Franz C. Bauer said: There is a shadow over the positive agreement we negotiated last year with the employers. We had agreed that for the next bargaining round we would focus on freelances – our demand for a adequate rise of the fee per line was however refused by the employers.“ The next…

The EFJ affiliate, the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ) elected a new chairman at its  IX Congress on 24 April. The out-going chair woman, Zhanna Litvina, had been serving the BAJ for almost 20 years announced the candidate for the chairmanship Andrei Bastunets. Litvina, had headed the organisation since it was founded in 1995. Litvina called Bastunets “conscience of the organisation, a person you can always rely on”. Bastunets, 48, a former deputy head, was elected chairman of BAJ, an organisation with 1,300 members. Andrus Klikunou , who is a member of the EFJ Freelance expert Group, was elected for…

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, presented today in Strasbourg his annual activity report 2014. The Commissioner is concerned by the “increased pressure against NGOs and the media in many Council of Europe member states”. Nils Muižnieks quoted the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) in his report. Here are some excerpts. “NGOs and the media play an extremely important role in safeguarding human rights more broadly. Where large parliamentary majorities govern and other checks and balances are weakened, NGOs and the media are often the sole remaining watchdogs able and willing to keep the authorities accountable before the law.…

To mark this year’s World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) call on public authorities across the globe to put legislation in place that secure fair, minimum contractual conditions for journalists and ensure they are equitably remunerated for the use of their works. Journalists are the authors of the works they produce. They own economic rights and in most countries have moral rights. This means that they must be remunerated for the use of their works and can protect the integrity of their journalism against any form…

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of journalists (EFJ) have strongly condemn the death threat against a Macedonian TV presenter, Borjan Jovanovski, and call on the Macedonian authorities to prosecute the perpetrators. Borjan Jovanovski, a prominent journalist, editor and founder of Novatv.mk, received on 21 April at his home in Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM), a death threat in the form of a funeral wreath with the words ”last goodbye” written on it. The wreath was brought by an unknown man in the name of Todor Aleksandrov, a controversial figure celebrated by the ruling party, VMRO DPMNE. Jovanovski…

Turkey, Russia and Azerbaijan, member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) are among the countries with most cases of media violation as recorded by the new platform launched by the CoE to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists. Since the launch of the platform early this month, a total of 42 alerts were recorded by partners of the platform including the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ). Among the 42 cases, Turkey came at the top of the list with the highest number of media violation, Azerbaijan and Russia came second (7 cases of media violation) and…

Save the date: the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) will participate in the World Press Freedom Day, in Riga and Brussels, on 3rd May 2015. Riga event UNESCO leads the worldwide celebration co-hosted by UNESCO and the Government of Latvia, in Riga, from 2-4 May 2015. As official partners of the event, the IFJ and the EFJ will organise on 3 May (14:00-15:30) a panel discussion at the National Library, on “Regulation, Sustainable Self-regulation and Professional Standards” (speakers: Mr Jim Boumelha, President of the IFJ, Mr Mogens Blicher Bjerregård, President of the EFJ, Mr…

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its regional organisation, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), have together backed a journalists’ strike in Kiev in early April after the TVi broadcaster ceased paying salaries to 300 employees. The Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine (IMTUU), an affiliate of the IFJ and the EFJ, held the demonstration on 2 April in support of the journalists where it demanded the management to pay the media staff. According to TVi staff, the channel, which stopped broadcasting on 23rd March, recently changed ownership to David Zhvania’s and the new management ceased the salary payments.…

What does it mean in practice to carry out investigative journalism today? What conditions are necessary to offer journalists an optimal environment to undertake their work? How are global networks changing the game? In view of recent relevation about bank secrecy covered by the media and investigative journalists, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will organise a media lunchtime talk on investigative journalism at 12:30 (CEST) Thursday 23 April 2015. The debate focuses on the importance of  investigative Journalism, the difficult conditions and environments where journalists work as well as the challenges…

Join us for a webinar on April 21, 2015 at 12:00 AM CEST. Register now:! https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1619804193653421057 The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and its Freelance Expert Group (FREG) in cooperation with the Deutscher Journalisten-Verband (DJV) are organising another webinar, this time on social security for freelance journalists in Europe, a theme ever more important in times of increasing flexibility and decreasing social security. Ivan Declercq, freelance advisor of the Flemish journalist association (VVJ) will give some examples from European countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Norway. The special system in Germany of the so-called Künstlersozialkasse (KSK) (artists’ social insurance)…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) together with a group of European creators’ organisations (ESCA, EVA, EWC, FERA, FSE, GESAC, UNI-MEI and SAA) has called on members of the European Parliament in the Legal Affair Committees to examine carefully the amendments to an own initiative report on reforming EU copyright. The group expressed their concern in a letter (see below) about the draft report by MEP Julia Reda on the implementation of the 2001/29 Copyright Directive. They said, “If [the report is] not completely amended, [it] would severely weaken the position of European authors who need to be placed at…

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