Hungary It all started with a simple question. Janos Karpati, then Brussels correspondent for the Hungarian national newswire, didn’t think it would terminate his longtime career when he addressed the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban at a press conference at the fringes of the European Parliament’s plenary meeting in Strasbourg. Orban had come to Strasbourg to speak about migration – and his widely-criticized comment on reinstating the death penalty. Karpati, an experienced correspondent who has worked in Prague and Washington, DC, asked Orban about Fidesz’ position within the European People’s Party, a question he hadn’t cleared with anyone beforehand. He…

The International and European Federations of Journalists welcome the Azerbaijani Supreme Court’s decision today to release investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova, who had been imprisoned on trumped-up charges since December 2014. The court converted Ismayilova’s jail term into a three-and-a half-year suspended term. Khadija Ismayilova has already served 1.5 years in prison, held on politically motivated charges for her work exposing corruption. She now faces 3.5 years on probation, and a two-year ban on professional activities. In September 2015, the Baku Court of Serious Crimes sentenced Ismayilova to seven-and-a-half years in prison on tax evasion and large-scale embezzlement charges. The IFJ…

How do we bring authors’ rights back to the core of the copyright debate? Where are authors in the EU copyright priorities? How can EU lawmakers ensure that authors get a fair share of their works and do not get ripped of by unfair contracts? To address these questions, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), is partnering with European organisations representing music composers (ECSA), writers (EWC), film directors (FERA) and Screenwriters (FSE) in a key conference on 31 May in Brussels addressing authors’ rights, freedom of expression and digital future. More about the conference: http://creatorsconference.org/home

Journalists Union of Serbia (SINOS – EFJ affiliate) in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation held a seminar in Prolom Banja (Serbia) from 19 to 21 May. The theme of the was organising unions for media workers in Serbia and the Balkans countries. The participants talked about precarious work, legal and social status of journalists and the sustainability of trade unions in the media with multinational ownership problems. The President of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Mogens Blicher Bjerregard spoke about the experience of organizing unions for journalists in different European Union member states. He stressed that progress is possible when…

UPDATE (01/06/2016) : Nada Kalkan, the new editor of RTV, is sending the EFJ the following statement : “That’s not true that journalists in RTV were layoffs. Previous program director was replaced and new director elected because the executive board was not satisfied. The general director and the editor-in-chief have resigned. Now, we have new a group of managers, nobody at RTV was dismissed or degraded and most of them have same salary and rested on editorial places.” Serbian media report that program director of RTV, Slobodan Arežina, was replaced, general director Srđan Mihajlović resigned under political pressure; 7 editors of news program…

Update (25th May): Our Turkish colleague Erol Önderoglu is also under criminal investigation for “terrorist propaganda” for participating in a solidarity campaign with the Kurdish daily newspaper Özgür Gündem. The EFJ and IFJ demand that all criminal charges be dropped against journalists involved in this campaign. The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ and IFJ) is calling upon the presumptive upcoming Turkish Prime minister, Binali Yildirim, to end the climate of permanent judicial intimidation, threats, harassment, detention and physical assaults against journalists and media workers in Turkey. The EFJ is particularly underlining the fact that Turkish judicial authorities have recently opened an…