The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ/IFJ) today condemned the “politically motivated” dismissal of an Azeri journalist working for APA Holding Media Organisation on 12 September. Journalist Gasimov Farahim Ilqar posted a photo on Facebook showing the success of a rally organized recently by the National Council of Democratic Forces, an umbrella organisation uniting part of the country’s opposition forces, and which had been sanctioned by the government. The demonstrators were protesting in the frame of an upcoming referendum that would give Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev greater powers and a longer term in office, media reported. The journalist told that…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has called today in Skopje for the immediate release of detained Macedonian freelance journalist Zoran Bozinovski. Zoran Bozinovski has been spending five months in detention in Skopje, after his extradiction from Serbia where he had spent another 18 months detained. The prosecutor’s office in Skopje needed four months to deliver the formal indictment for alleged espionnage, blackmail and criminal association. The EFJ member organisations in the country, the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) and the Trade Union of Macedonian Journalists and Media Workers (SSNM), consider that the case against Bozinovski is not based…

The European Federations of Journalists (EFJ), along with its German affiliates – the Deutscher Journalisten-Verband (DJV) and the DeutscheJournalistinnen- und Journalisten-Union in ver.di (dju in ver.di) – urges the German Bundestag to back off on the revision of the Bundesnachrichtendienst –BND law, following the strong opposition of many media organisations and the OSCE. The draft law foresees to increase BND’s capabilities to spy on non-EU citizens outside of Germany. No exemption is made for foreign journalists or editorial offices outside the European Union: they would be subjected to surveillance without an explicit court order. This law would legitimise a practice…

As well as launching new guidelines for migration coverage at the Jakarta World Forum for Media Development, the EJN co-hosted a session about online regulation which looked into ways journalists and others can define, identify and respond to hate speech. Today, the EJN is happy to announce that our 5–point test for hate speech is now available in seven new languages, including Albanian, Dutch, Indonesian, Macedonian, Serbian, Turkish, Ukrainian. The test is already available in Arabic, English and French. The 5-point test and its translations are supported by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ).

This morning (21/09/2016), the Caglayan Court of Justice in Istanbul heard 5 different prosecution cases against journalists. The EFJ-IFJ and its affiliates TGS (Journalists Union of Turkey), DISK-Basin-Is (Journalists Union of Turkey from DISK) and TGC (Journalists Association of Turkey) have been able to observe the following cases : the appeal in the MIT Trucks case where journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül  working for Cumhuriyet newspaper who were sentenced to 5 years in jail for revealing state secrets and arms trafficking between Turkish intelligence services (MIT) and Syrian armed rebel groups. The hearing was held in secret but this did not…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins its affiliates – the Croatian Journalists’ Association, Association of Macedonian Journalists, Association of BiH Journalists, Association of Kosovo Journalists, Union of Montenegro Media and Independent Association of Serbian Journalists – to strongly condemn the brutal death threats against Nedim Sejdinović, President of Independent Association of Vojvodina Journalists (NDNV) and Dinko Gruhonjić, NDNV Program director. Threats were sent by anonymous letter to NDNV in Novi Sad (Serbia). The letter called on Sejdinović to resign as President of the Independent Association of Vojvodina Journalists if he and his colleague, Dinko Gruhonjić, do no want to “be found swimming in the Danube”. Hate…