The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and its affiliate the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately release journalist Yahor Martsinovich. On Wednesday 23 September, the editor-in-chief of the weekly Nasha Niva, Yahor Martsinovich, was arrested on suspicion of defamation in a report mentioning the Belarusian Deputy Minister of the Interior, Alyaksandr Barsukou. The journalist’s flat was searched by police. Yahor Martsinovich was held in pre-trial detention for 3 days. The EFJ and BAJ once again call on the Belarusian authorities to decriminalise defamation. “We consider that the criminal proceedings against Yahor Martsinovich are primarily…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) together with 16 press freedom, journalists, media literacy and media development organisations sent a letter to the German presidency of the Council of the European Union in light of the ongoing discussion on the EU budget and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027. The MMF covers the Creative Europe budget which includes support for independent media and journalism. The coalition likewise wrote to the European Parliament’s Budget Commission and to EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn responsible for Budget and Administration. The MFF regulation is adopted under a special legislative procedure, which requires unanimity to…

Together with partner organisations, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) signed a letter to shed light on the repeated cases of police violence and intimidation against journalists in Bulgaria as well as the restrictions for the press to engage with lawmakers in the new headquarters of the Bulgarian National Assembly. The letter reads as follows: 24 September 2020 Dear Boyko Borissov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria Dear Hristo Terziyski, Interior Minister of Bulgaria Dear Tsveta Karayancheva, Speaker of the National Assembly cc Diana Kovacheva, head of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria We, the undersigned partners of the Media Freedom…

In a letter dated 2 June 2020, József Magyar, the Hungarian deputy secretary of state for development of European affairs at the ministry of foreign affairs and trade, asked Hungarian embassies in the European Union to provide information about the professional visits of Hungarian journalists to the respective EU countries. The letter, unveiled on 21 September by the online news platform Telex, requests embassies to report professional visits, training courses and research trips for Hungarian journalists in recent years. Hungarian representations were asked to report when these trips abroad took place, which Hungarian media participated, and which organisations or press…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) together with the MFRR partners reiterated their serious concern in a letter to Chairperson of the Albanian Parliament, Gramoz Ruçi and Albanian parliamentarians about the controversial package of online media laws amendments, which in their current form falls short of international law and standards. Dear Chairperson of the Parliament, Mr Gramoz Ruçi, Dear Honourable Members of Parliament, We are writing to express our grave concern about the apparent plans of the Parliament of Albania to ignore the issues raised in Venice Commission Opinion No. 980/2020 of 19 June 2020, further threatening press freedom and…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) welcomes the agreement reached on Thursday at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to send an international expert mission to Belarus. As requested by the EFJ and Human Rights Watch on 26 August, finally 17 governments of OSCE participating states agreed on Thursday evening to activate the so-called “Moscow Mechanism”, which allows the OSCE to send an international expert mission to a state suspected of human rights violations. Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United…

Together with a coalition of 25 organisations and companies, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) urged members of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE) to include strong procedural safeguards to protect journalists in the so called “e-evidence regulation”. The EFJ had expressed concern several times in the past about the Commission’s proposal for a regulation on European Production and Preservation Orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters (known as ‘e-evidence regulation’) as it could pose a serious threat for freedom of the media, freedom of expression and freedom of information without robust safeguards.  The signatories…

On September 17, 2000, Georgiy Gongadze, well-known Ukrainian journalist and founder of popular Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, was murdered. His decapitated body was found on November 2, 2000, about 100 km from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Georgiy’s murder is considered by many to be the most important crime against a journalist in the history of independent Ukraine because the state’s highest leaders were involved in it. Concretely, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The perpetrator, Oleksiy Pukach, a former general and high-ranking official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, is currently serving a jail sentence for…

To protect press and media freedom, we need an accurate picture of the forces that threaten it. To do this, we must collect and verify as much information as possible. That is why the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) has launched the ‘Report It’ campaign to create awareness and encourage everyone to play a role in documenting and reporting the many violations committed against journalists and media workers across Europe. It is wrong that such violations, abuses and aggressions have become so frequent as to be almost accepted as “situation:normal”. Through this campaign, the MFRR insists that this behaviour should…

Since 9 September 2020, a number of journalists and photographers on the island of Lesbos have been intermittently restricted from reporting from an area where thousands of refugees and asylum seekers are being held without accommodation or sanitation after fires destroyed large areas of the Moria Registration and Identification Centre. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) together with the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners wrote to Minister for Civil Protection, Michalis Chrisochoidis and Police Lieutenant General Karamalakis calling for all journalists to safely access the relevant sites on Lesbos, in line with Greece’s obligations under international law. Dear Minister…

On 10 August, the day after the fraudulent elections in Belarus, journalist Natalya Lubnevskaya was injured in the leg by a rubber bullet fired by security forces. She was covering demonstrations in Minsk for the newspaper “Nasha Niva”. She has just been released from hospital and is demanding justice. Natalya, 27 years old, graduated from the Institute of Journalism of the Belarusian State University five years ago. She covers news related to women and the status of women for the daily newspaper Nasha Niva. Today she gave an interview to the online media TUT.BY. “No one forced me to work…

The EFJ affiliate in Belarus, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), celebrates today its 25th anniversary in a particularly hostile context. The EFJ is proud of Belarusian colleagues in their struggle for media freedom and against repression and censorship. We call on all journalists’ organisations and all journalists to show solidarity with colleagues in Belarus. Use the hashtag #BAJ25RAZAM on social networks. Today BAJ celebrates the 25th anniversary of its foundation in a dramatic context. BAJ President Andrey Bastunets calls on journalists’ unions and associations in Europe to continue to inform colleagues and the public about the repeated violations of human…

A new UNESCO report highlights a sharp increase in the global number of protests during which the police and security forces violated media freedom in the first half of 2020, including in Europe. The annual report of the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism drew the same conclusions in April, reporting numerous cases of violence in France, United Kingdom, Spain, Turkey, Albania, Azerbaijan and Russia. UNESCO’s new report, Safety of Journalists Covering Protests – Preserving Freedom of the Press During Times of Civil Unrest, points to a wider upward trend in the use of unlawful force by police…

The wave of repression against journalists continues in Belarus. On the sidelines of the demonstrations on Friday, Saturday and Sunday against the disputed president Lukashenko, eleven journalists were abusively detained by the security forces. Nine of them are still in prison today. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) demands their immediate release. The EFJ affiliate in Belarus, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), which continues to monitor any violation of press freedom in the country, issued today the list of detained journalists: Catarina Andreeva (Belsat), detained in Minsk on Saturday; Max Kalitovky, detained in Minsk on Saturday; Aliaxandr Vasyukovich, detained…

The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ-IFJ), respectively Europe’s and the world’s largest organisations of journalists, responded on 9 September to a consultation by the European Commission (EC) on the implementation of Article 17 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.  Article 17 of the EU Directive aims to close the “value-gap” between rights holders and online platforms and to ensure a fair share of the wealth generated by online platforms using protected works, is distributed to creative industries and their authors, including journalists. In a second submission on the article, the federations supported the…

On 8 September, a member of the Armenian National Assembly brought forward a legislative proposal on insult and defamation that aims to increase fines for publishing insults and defamatory comments in the media and social networks. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ and EFJ) join their affiliate, the Union of Journalists of Armenia (UJA), in urging the parliament not to take up the proposal. The deputy speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, proposed the bill to amend the civil code. The proposal aims to increase compensation for insult or defamation by five times, bringing damages for an…