Following the start of the retrial last week at the Court of Appeal for the 1999 murder of Serbian editor and publisher Slavko Ćuruvija, the undersigned partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and the SafeJournalists Network (SJN) today renew our call for justice for his killing to finally be secured. The pending ruling – which will either confirm or dismiss the previous guilty verdicts handed down to four state security agents for carrying out and planning his assassination – will be the most consequential for media freedom and journalism in Serbia’s modern history. Coming nearly 24 years after…

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) condemns the decision of the Italian prosecutor to issue a seizure order for Domani’s investigative article, following a criminal complaint by the Undersecretary at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the current government. Italian press freedom is seriously threatened by yet another attempt by a member of the current government to silence independent journalism. The undersigned media freedom and civil society organisations strongly condemn the decision of the Italian prosecutor to issue a seizure order for Domani’s investigative article, following a criminal complaint by Claudio Durigon, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Labour and…

Bosnian journalist Nikola Morača had his phone confiscated after he refused to reveal his sources during an interrogation by the Banja Luka Police Station, on 24 February 2023. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined its affiliate the Bosnia-Herzegovina Journalists’ Association (BHN) in condemning this appalling attack on the protection of sources. Nikola Morača, who works for the newspaper EuroBlic and the portal SrpskaInfo, had written about the rape of an eighteen years old in the city of Banja Luka. The police had been looking for Morača and interrogated him after he arrived accompanied by his lawyer at the station. In the…

Today, marking one year since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners reiterate our condemnation of Russia’s war of aggression. We continue to stand in solidarity with the journalists and media workers who cover the events at great risk to their safety and remember those who have died in the line of duty. The war’s deadly toll has cast a dark shadow over press freedom in Europe. Killing, kidnapping, torture and other attacks on journalists and media workers has no place in Ukraine, and those responsible must face justice for their…

French weekly Le Poher had to evacuate its office on 20 February 2023 after an anonymous caller said a bomb had been placed in the office in Carhaix, France. Although no explosive device was found, this incident comes on top of several serious acts of intimidation targeting Le Poher in recent weeks. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins the French journalists’ unions SNJ, SNJ-CGT, and CFDT-Journalistes in expressing solidarity with the six employees, and denouncing the deleterious effects of these repeated attacks on the regional independent newspaper and its journalists. The bomb threat is the latest of a series…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined today the partner organisations of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) in expressing solidarity with Emilia Sercan and urging the end of coordinated attacks on the journalist. Today, 17 February 2023, marks one year since journalist Emilia Șercan filed a police complaint about cybercrime and violation of privacy after she discovered five stolen personal pictures taken about twenty years ago had been published on 34 porn websites. The next day, Șercan found that a Moldovan website had published an article containing the five stolen pictures and a Facebook Messenger screenshot she had provided…