To mark the International Women’s Day on 8 March, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) partners with the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) to launch a special Women’s Reporting Point to address the growing threat facing women journalists coming from online and offline world. The Women’s Reporting Point is hosted by the ECPMF to allow victims to report threats via encrypted messaging. The report will be handled with care and confidentiality by a female member of the staff. The reports made to the ECPMF will be collected in a database (with details of the woman’s identity removed)…

Update (05/03/2016): Turkish police have raided the offices of Zaman, the country’s biggest newspaper, late on Friday, in Istanbul, hours after a court ruling placed it under state control. Another blow to free speech in #Turkey: #Zaman takeover is nothing but a veiled move to eradicate opposition media pic.twitter.com/fJM0QZ4EJc — Lotte Leicht (@LotteLeicht1) March 5, 2016 ——————— The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) are closely following and with great concerns the ongoing media crackdown against Zaman media group in Turkey. On March 4, according to local media reports, an İstanbul court has appointed trustees…

The EFJ newsletter, EFJ Focus, is available in English and German.   EDITORIAL Media freedom under attacks In Turkey, local journalists are being put in prison while foreign journalists are being deported. Meanwhile, Poland changed its media law giving more power to the government and parliament. These attacks on media freedom are being recorded by the Council of Europe (CoE) Platform on the protection and safety of journalists. In the past year, the CoE has recorded 125 alerts on media violations. Therefore, it is important to bring this issue on the top of the European agenda. In February, a Danish…

The Pan-Hellenic Federation of Journalists’ Unions (PFJU, EFJ-IFJ affiliate) expresses its opposition to unprecedented ban to journalistic research and reporting aspects of the urgent situation regarding refugee attempted by a new “directive” issued by the Greek ministry of Immigration Policy. According to this directive, “both on the Islands and on the mainland of Greece, television crews and journalists will not be granted license to enter the premises where refugees are hosted until further notice”. PFJU calls on the Greek government to withdraw the decision immediately, since no state of emergency can justify any restriction of individual and social rights constitutionally…

The EFJ sent the following letter  to Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn: Dear Commissioner Hahn, On behalf of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), representing over 300.000 journalists across Europe, and our affiliates in Macedonia, the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (ZNM) and the Trade Union of Macedonian Journalists and Media workers (SSNM), we are writing to you with continued grave concerns over the state of media freedom in Macedonia. As you know, since 2015, Macedonia is in a deep political crisis after the opposition boycotted the Parliament and published the wiretapping scandal. The opposition in the subsequent months published a…

The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ-IFJ) warmly welcomed today Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruling on February 25 stating that the rights of Cumhuriyet newspaper journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül have been violated and underlining the lack of justification to jail them following the publication of several articles. The ruling refers to the violations of Article 19 (“right to personal liberty and security”), Article 26 (freedom of expression) and Article 28 (press freedom) of Turkey’s Constitution. Dündar and Gül were arrested on 26 November 2015 after the newspaper’s reporting and footage of the content of trucks belonging to the National Intelligence Agency.…