Report to AEJ 2023 General Assembly
from William Horsley, AEJ Contact for Council of Europe Platform for Safety of Journalists
(This report accompanies AEJ MF Representative’s Report)
The Council of Europe’s Journalism Matters Campaign for journalists’ safety: A unique opportunity for AEJ members to join the fight for press freedom
On 5 October in Riga the Council of Europe launched Europe’s largest ever government-backed press freedom Campaign – the Campaign for the Safety of Journalists – Freedom of Expression (coe.int) . The Journalism Matters campaign calls on journalists and press freedom supporters to take part actively in events and actions, and engage with National Action Plans National committees – Freedom of Expression (coe.int) to push for reforms and effective protections. The major goal is to remove the barriers to critical journalism and help put in place safeguards for the media to be safe and independent, and to “hold power to account”.
Media ministers of the 46 member states have publicly accepted that media freedom and democratic standards have declined drastically across Europe in recent years! So they agreed to support this 5-year plan – up to the end of 2027. It is intended to involve government ministries, parliaments, media, lawyers, civil society and the public in multiple activities to improve protection for journalists and their work.
At the Riga conference prominent figures — including Matthew Caruana Galizia (son of Daphne), a Strasbourg court judge, and Ukraine’s parliamentary Ombudsman – appealed for urgent actions in all 46 member states. They especially called for 1) an end to impunity; 2) stronger safeguards against physical and legal attacks & all actions by public officials that suppress free speech and critical journalism; and 3) countering “fake news” narratives and hate campaigns, like those used by Russian state media as a prelude to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
See here my report from the Riga gathering https://aej.org/2023/10/12/coe-launches-campaign-for-safety-of-journalists/ ; See here 1680ab0d11 (coe.int) for the Objectives and Expected results of the campaign; See here for
info about campaign activities in each country https://www.coe.int/en/web/freedom-expression/soj2023-2027-
nationalchapters .
IMPORTANT: Every country will have one individual – a so-called focal point — who will coordinate the Campaign activities in that country and act as a link with the Council of Europe Secretariat and officials in Strasbourg. Names and contacts of most of the 46 ‘focal points’ have not yet been made public. But see here for contact details of Council of Europe press officers in each part of Europe: https://https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/media-contactswww.coe.int/en/web/portal/media-contacts . I will share further useful information when it is available.
AEJ and the Platform for the Safety of Journalists : Actions and outcomes in 2023
This year’s annual Report https://aej-uk.org/2023/03/07/war-in-europe-war-on-journalism/ by the 15 Partner Organisations of the Council of Europe’s online Platform documented a record high number of attacks on journalists and a “continued degradation of press freedom across the continent.” The 2023 report – War in Europe and the Fight for the Right to Report – analysed 289 alerts concerning 37 countries in 2022, including cases of journalists being murdered, imprisoned, physically attacked, legally harassed, and subjected to smear campaigns. This included a 60% rise in the number of imprisoned journalists since 2021: as of 31 December 2022, 127 journalists were reported in detention – 52 in Turkey, 32 in Belarus, 22 in Russia, 14 in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, 4 in Azerbaijan, and one each in the United Kingdom, Georgia, and Poland.
The public launch of the Annual Report in the Brussels Press Club on 7 March was open to AEJ members to attend in-person; or to watch livestreamed via the link provided in advance. Highlights of the Platform activities this year include:
# In June jailed Georgian journalist Nika Gvaramia was pardoned by President Zurabishvili following written appeals from the AEJ and other Platform partners: https://cpj.org/2023/06/cpj-welcomes-pardon-for-jailed-georgian-journalist-nika-gvaramia/ .
# In September a Press Freedom Mission to Greece by eight groups including RSF and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom called on the government to take urgent actions to “salvage press freedom”; a written report highlighted threats from the “Predatorgate” scandal, the unresolved killing of Giorgos Karaivaz and abusive legal actions: https://www.ecpmf.eu/murdered-surveilled-and-sued-decisive-action-needed-to-protect-journalists-and-
salvage-press-freedom-in-greece/ .
# Public statements in 2023 co-signed by the AEJ and other Platform partners have concerned: Turkey’s stifling of critical reporting before elections in April; the arrest in Moscow of New York Times journalist Evan Gershkovich; the brutal attack in Chechnya in July against journalist Elina Milashina and her lawyer; and the 6th anniversary of the 2017 murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia (October) .
Other Council of Europe news:-
Media laws and policy: The specialist Committee for media issues and journalists’ safety has produced new Guidelines for member states covering Protection against SLAPPs (abuisne lawsuits); the Safety of online information; and the Resilience and economic stability of media : https://www.coe.int/en/web/freedom-
expression/cdmsi-and-expert-committees . They are due to be adopted early in 2024 and will then become effective as “soft law” , with their provisions helping to protect journalists and journalism in national courts and through judgements in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Belarus: Our former journalist colleague Andrei Aliaksandrau, who worked in London for some years and attended the AEJ Congress in Ordu, Turkey, has been in jail for three years. In January 2021 he was sentenced to 14 years on trumped-up treason and public order charges for his brave actions in support of mass public demonstrations against the Lukashenko regime and its election fraud. Andrei founded Belaruski Zhurnal and was a senior figure in the Belarus Association of Journalists. Last year the BAJ was awarded the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize https://www.coe.int/en/web/freedom-expression/safety-of-journalists-campaign .
