14 partner organizations to the Council of Europe Platform protecting journalists conducted an annual report entitled “Wanted! Real action for media freedom in Europe”.
This 2021 publication presents the annual assessment of threats to media freedom in the Council of Europe’s member states in 2020.
The main areas of concern and issues highlighted in this annual report were related to physical attacks, harassment and intimidation, effects of Covid-19 and lockdown measures on press freedom, impunity, criminalization of journalism, judicial harassment, defamation, media capture, online harassment etc.
The report relied on freedom alerts published on the Platform, which this year raised major concerns on relevant evidence recorded in key areas such physical assaults, harassment or intimidation, where partner organisations consider immediate actions required. Adopting good practices and reforms by promoting effective protection for violations of the Europe Convention on Human Rights should be crucial.
They call on governments to establish and maintain mechanisms against violent attacks, arbitrary arrests, legal harassment and other forms of interference against the legitimate work of journalists.
A total of 201 media freedom alerts were published on the Platform in 2020 – the highest annual number recorded on the Platform since its launch in 2015. A record number of alerts concerned physical attacks (52 cases), and harassment and intimidation (70 cases).
The report includes the killing of Albanian media owner Kastriot Reci in January 2020, circumstances of which are yet to be clarified.
Abuse of the criminal law by the state. Criminal investigations, prosecutions and convictions against journalists by state actors were recorded in several countries.
Journalists and media workers were harassed by police while reporting on protests and other public events in Albania, Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Poland, Russia, among other countries. Even where this was not the precursor to further criminal proceedings, this practice clearly interfered with reporting.
The partner organizations urged member states to adopt good government practices including consultations and mechanisms to preempt tensions between police and members of the media monitoring public events and to de-escalate violence if it occurs during protests.
Regarding Covid-19 Pandemic, emergency measures must not be used as a pretext to restrict the rights of journalists, in order to censor unwanted reporting around the pandemic.
Several alerts in 2020 reported on the surveillance of the press. “Journalists must enjoy a right to privacy in order to protect their sources and to carry out their work without state oversight” is stated in the report.
In 2020, state media capture continued to spread in the Council of Europe region as a method of repressing media freedom and independent journalism. State-led media capture involves the exploitation of state economic, regulatory and legislative competencies to assume effective control over independent private media while undermining their reach and sustainability.
