The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today released its annual report of killings of journalists, detailing 49 deaths worldwide in 2019 (including two in Europe). The world’s largest organisation of journalists reiterated its call for a real commitment by governments to fight impunity for crimes committed against journalists and for media employers to provide safety training, insurance and equipment for their staff in the field. On 31 December 2019, the IFJ published its list of media workers killed in the line of duty, showing 49 journalists killed in 2019, including three women, half as many as in previous years. The report, published on 4 February, provides…

Citizens, journalists, artists, human rights organisations and journalists’ unions gathered on January 29th in Brussels to call on the Belgian government to do its utmost to protect Julian Assange and impede his extradition to the United States. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ and EFJ) joined the two Belgian civil society organisations, Carta Academica and Belgium4Assange, in two public actions organised in Brussels to defend freedom of expression, freedom of the press and our right to know in general, and Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Sarah Harrison and Edward Snowden in particular. Over 120 personalities, artists, activists and journalists…

Julian Assange, publisher of Wikileaks, is currently detained in Belmarsh high-security prison in the United Kingdom. He faces extradition to the United States and criminal prosecution under the US Espionage Act. He has been charged for publishing the Afghanistan and Iraq war diaries and US embassy cables, important documents that many journalists around the world used and helped to publicise. The “War Diaries” provided evidence that the US Government misled the public about activities in Afghanistan and Iraq and committed war crimes. “We believe that the arbitrary detention and criminal prosecution of Julian Assange set an extremely dangerous precedent for…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined today the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the UK and Ireland renewed call for an independent investigation into the murder of Sunday World journalist and union activist Martin O’Hagan. In a joint statement marking the anniversary of Martin’s murder on 28 September 2001, Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary and Séamus Dooley, NUJ assistant general secretary called for the appointment of an external investigator to carry out an independent inquiry into the murder and the subsequent failure of the police to secure conviction for the murder. The statement said: “The NUJ remains gravely concerned at…

Guardian journalist Owen Jones has been physically assaulted in London while celebrating his 35th birthday with friends in the early hours of Saturday morning. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) condemned the outrageous attack on Owen Jones and called on the British authorities to investigate the case and bring the perpetrators to justice. After leaving a bar near King’s Cross in London on the night of Saturday 17 August, at about 3am, a group of men approached Owen Jones and his friends and began hitting him in the head from behind. According to reports, Jones fell to the ground after…

On 14 June, the UK Representation to the European Union (EU) and the Mission of Canada to the EU hosted the event “Thought is free: Protecting and promoting media freedom”. In two panels, six discussants shared their thoughts on media freedom, fact checking, safety of journalists, the loss of trust in media and the daily struggles of female journalists. The event was organised in the lead of the Global Conference for Media Freedom to take place on 11-11 July in London. In his opening statement, the Ambassador of Canada Dan Costello quoted journalists to be “modern heroes”, listing a worrying…

Dr Vaclav Stetka (PI) and Professor Sabina Mihelj (Co-I) have been awarded an ESRC standard research grant for a project titled “The Illiberal Turn? News Consumption, Political Polarisation and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe” (£817,000). The project will carry out a comparative analysis of the relationship between news consumption and political attitudes in four CEE countries – Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Serbia, at a key point in time when the region is witnessing the rise of populist leaders, resurgence of illiberal nationalism, and a shift towards authoritarian forms of government. Scheduled to run from May 2019 until November 2021,…

The Signatories in the Audiovisual Sector express their grave concern about the potential threat to the Audiovisual industry posed by Brexit. We call on the negotiators on both sides to ensure that the interests of the Audiovisual industry across the EU and the UK be protected in the current negotiations and in particular to give special consideration to the potentially very severe damage for their business operators and workers if the future framework for the cooperation between the EU and the UK Audiovisual sector are not adapted. More specifically: There are fears that, in the film and sector, important co-production…