On 16 September 2000, investigative journalist Georgy Gongadze, founder of the online daily Ukrainska Pravda, was kidnapped and murdered. 22 years after the murder, the person who ordered the killing is still at large. The journalist disappeared on 16 September 2000. His beheaded body was found six weeks later, about 100 km from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Georgiy Gongadze had been investigating corruption within the Government and in the Presidency of the then President Leonid Kuchma. In the months leading to his death, Gongadze reported that he was under surveillance and had been receiving threats. After years of investigations, four former…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) today joins the undersigned journalists’, media freedom, and human rights organisations in welcoming the European Commission’s initiative to strengthen the free and pluralistic media system and the commitment to protect journalists and editorial independence within the European Union. The EFJ and media freedom groups also stress need for improvements. These values directly link to fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, the right to access to information, the formation of opinion, and making informed choices in elections, as enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Matters relating to the media have traditionally been the…

Amidst the unprecedented attack on democratic freedoms in Ukraine, serious violations of media freedom have continued to take place all over Europe in the first six months of 2022, according to a report published today by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR). The report was compiled by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the International Press Institute (IPI) and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF). The MFRR monitoring report – available to download – documents violations and attacks on media freedom across European Union Member States and Candidate Countries between January and June 2022. It illustrates the increasing…

Eleven journalists and representatives from regional journalists’ unions in Germany took part in a training workshop on the health and safety of journalists in Bonn on September 14-15 2022. This workshop is the first in a series of training sessions organised by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) as part of the  Safety4Journalists project. The workshop was organised by EFJ and its member the German Federation of Journalists (DJV). It focused on specific safety needs for journalists in Germany, including covering protests safely, online harassment and trolling.   It responds to the increasing attacks facing journalists in Germany with the aim…

Is there a story in your local town, somewhere in Europe, that you think is worth sharing with the rest of the world? If the answer is yes, but you lack resources, we may have the solution for you: a grant to support local investigative journalists and/or local news media outlets from several European countries who want to do investigative reporting at the local level in resonance with the European level.  Why local? In every nook and cranny of the world, there are many stories waiting to be told. This grant programme aims to tackle the shortage of local journalists…

The Moscow City Court dissolved today the Journalists and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU), the independent representative organisation of journalists and media workers in Russia. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) strongly condemn this illegitimate political trial, based on false accusations. The IFJ and EFJ will continue to support their affiliate JMWU. Not surprisingly, the Moscow City Court on Wednesday followed the request of the prosecutor’s office to liquidate the independent journalists’ union JMWU, affiliated to the EFJ and IFJ. The prosecutor claimed that the trade union’s members did not pay membership fees and that its…