The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) welcomes the launch of the Croatian Center for the Protection of Freedom of Expression. The Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), in cooperation with the Union of Croatian Journalists (SNH), both members of the EFJ, will present this project in Zagreb, on 2 July. The Center will provide legal protection to journalists, in a context of increasingly frequent threats and intimidation. The new chair of HND, Sasa Lekovic, will present on Thursday, in Zagreb, the brand new Center for the Protection of Freedom of Expression (CPFE). The organisation will provide legal advice and representation to journalists…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have together condemned the actions of Armenian police who attacked and briefly detained at least 10 media workers who were covering a demonstration on 23 June in Yerevan (Armenia). The two organisations have asked the authorities to investigate the incidents and punish the perpetrators. According to media reports, at least 10 media workers were assaulted and briefly detained by police officers who destroyed phones, cameras, laptops and video equipment of many journalists. The police also confiscated the memory cards of those who had filmed the crackdown against…

Representative from 20 journalists’ organisations, publishing houses, academic institutions, trade unions and media experts from many European countries have launched the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) in Leipzig, Germany. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) is among the founding members of the ECPMF. Mogens Blicher Bjerregård (EFJ President) and Liljana Smaijlovic (UNS President, Serbian Journalists’ Union) have been elected to the 8-member Executive Board,  Naser Selmani (President of the Journalists’ Association  of Macedonia) was elected into the Supervisory Board. The ECPMF is an independent non-profit European Co-operative Society (SCE). Its missions are to unite Europe’s highly fragmented media…

An IFJ/EFJ delegation met with Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda this morning to discuss her report on the implementation of the “infosoc” directive on copyright and related rights in the information society and the directive on trade secrets for which she was appointed as shadow rapporteur for the Greens EP group. The delegation was composed of EFJ President Mogens Blicher Bjerregård, EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez and IFJ/EFJ authors’ rights officer Pamela Morinière. The IFJ and the EFJ expressed its strong rejection of the trade secret directive. “You were right to vote against the current version of the text,” Ricardo…

A group of international press freedom and professional organisations, including the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), completed on Friday a three-day high-level mission to Spain, where a controversial new law on public security is set to take effect on July 1. In a series of meetings in Madrid, the group, led by the International Press Institute (IPI) and including representatives from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the Madrid-based Platform for the Defence of Free Expression (PDLI), as well as independent legal and regulatory experts, urged Spanish political parties to include key press…

According to the Association of Polish Journalists (Stowarzyszenie Dziennikarzy Polskich, SDP), an affiliate of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Polish journalist Lukasz Masiak (31) working for the popular local newsportal NaszaMlawa.pl has been beaten to death in the night of 13 to 14 June 2015 in the city center of Mlawa, a town located in north-central Poland. “Lukasz Masiak was an esteemed and courageous journalist working for a local newsportal. We are very sadened to learn his death and deeply concerned that decisive response of law enforcement authorities comes only after the murder of the journalist,” said the SDP representative. “We send our…