In a Memorandum published today, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, calls on the Slovenian authorities to put a stop to the marked deterioration of freedom of expression and of the media in the country. The Commissioner warns that some steps taken by the Slovenian government in recent months risk undermining the ability of independent voices to speak freely. She stresses that hostile public discourse, as well as smear campaigns and intimidation targeting civil society activists and those who express critical opinions, harm free expression and can have a chilling effect on media freedom. The Commissioner…

Two Azerbaijani journalists and an official were killed today by a landmine explosion in the Kalbajar region, west of Nagorno-Karabakh. Four others were injured in the incident, which saw a truck blown up by an anti-tank mine at about 11am local time, Azerbaijan’s interior ministry and the office of the prosecutor general said in a statement. The three victims were identified as Maharram Ibrahimov, a reporter working for state news agency AzerTag, Siraj Abishov, a cameraman for Azerbaijan state television AzTV, and local official Arif Aliyev. The explosion occurred when a bus carrying journalists who were on duty in the Kalbajar region…