Romania: Draft law threatens independence of AGERPRES news agency

UPDATE (31/10/2017) – On 30 October 2017, 64 senators from the ruling coalition (PSD-ALDE) voted the controversial draft law (16 senators voted against and 27 senators abstained). Alexandru Giboi, AGERPRES General Director, wrote in a press statement that the Romanian minister of Culture “Lucian Romascanu is preparing the dissolution of AGERPRES as an independent press agency”. ————————— The Romanian trade union of journalists MediaSind expressed its concerns about the new draft law intended to regulate the national news agency AGERPRES, to be discussed on 11 October 2017 by the Romanian Parliament. The new law foresees that any political majority could decide to dismiss…

Safety protocol with 16 points for journalists covering conflict zones

The Journalists Union of Turkey (TGS) in partnership with the European and International Federation of Journalists (EFJ-IFJ) successfully organised a 2-day Safety Workshop in Diyarbakir (Southeast of Turkey) on 03-04 October 2017 for local and visiting journalists regularly covering conflict zones in the region. This workshop was organised in the framework of the IFJ-EFJ-TGS project called #GazetecilikSuçDegildir / #JournalismisNOTaCrime, a campaign to set journalism free, develop trade union rights and defend freedom of expression in Turkey which receives the financial support of the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) Program managed by the European Commission. 30 journalists and media workers…