On 6th of September, BBC was reporting that Gauri Lankesh, a prominent Indian journalist critical of Hindu nationalist politics, vocal about Kashmiri Rights and Muslim rights has been shot dead in front of her house in India. Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered across several Indian cities on Wednesday. Media, human rights organisations and opposition party leaders also strongly condemned the shooting. Calling for a “thorough investigation” into the journalist’s murder, Amnesty International in London asked the police to determine whether Lankesh was killed “because of (her) journalism”. “State governments must act to protect those whose voices of dissent are…

The Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) organised on 15 December in Strasbourg a high level seminar as a follow-up activity to the CoE Secretary General’s report on the State of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Europe 2015. The EFJ was represented by its president. In his report, the Secretary General of the CoE, Thorbjørn Jagland, proposed a two-year Europe-wide programme to support national mechanisms to protect journalists, such as ombudsman institutions, press commissioners and non-governmental organisations. The programme pursues several goals: to strengthen the capacities of such…

Media Under Attack has been compiled by the IFJ and the affiliated unions in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine where we have  just completed a 3 year programme of press freedom and safety campaigning for journalists. The report provides an overview of the media situation for each country, details press freedom violations recorded since 2011 and outlines the continuing challenges facing journalists unions and their members. Further contributions have been made from Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. Read the report HERE