Feindbild Journalist 7

Feindbild Journalist 7: Berufsrisiko Nähe

Feindbild Journalist 7: Berufsrisiko Nähe

After setting two negative records in a row, the number of attacks on media professionals in Germany fell in 2022. The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) recorded 56 assaults throughout the year; 27 fewer than in 2021.

After setting two negative records in a row, the number of attacks on media professionals in Germany fell in 2022. The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) recorded 56 assaults throughout the year; 27 fewer than in 2021.

According to the analysis of the researchers, the decline in attacks is largely due to the marginalisation of the lateral thinking movement protests. In the previous year, the largest proportion of assaults (77 percent) had taken place around demonstrations against COVID-19 measures. In 2022, that proportion dropped to 48 percent. However, the decline cannot be read as an indication that the security situation is easing. At 56 verified attacks, the attacks are four times that of the pre-pandemic level of 2019, when there were 14 attacks.

Outrage movements such as lateral thinking or previously Pegida are catalysts of press hostility. How high the number of attacked journalists in Germany is, depends largely on the mobilisation ability of these protestors. Hatred of the press serves them as an ideological clasp to keep their heterogeneous followers together,” says Martin Hoffmann, co-author of the study.

In a comparison of the German states, Saxony recorded the most assaults with eleven cases. This is the fifth time since 2015 that the Free State has recorded the most annual assaults. In 2022, Berlin followed with nine registered assaults. Bavaria and Thuringia had eight each. An increased spread of assaults to the western German states, which was first observed in 2021, did not continue last year, according to the ECPMF analysis.

 

Focus on local journalism: When proximity becomes a security problem

Compared to the previous year, the number of physical attacks on local journalists increased threefold. A total of twelve physical attacks were verified; in the previous year, four local media professionals were affected. According to the analysis, local media workers are exposed to a particular threat because they cannot disappear into anonymity like their colleagues in larger cities. In some cases, anti-press citizens demonstrated directly in front of editorial offices or tried to intimidate journalists in front of their private homes.

The ‘lying press’ accusations that have persisted for years have led to the current level of threats. We heard in many interviews that media professionals take security precautions when reporting on demos or that they avoid potentially dangerous situations altogether,” says Annkathrin Pohl, co-author of the study. “What is frightening to note, however, is that for some, the hostility has not only changed the way they work, but their own attitude toward the job: from what used to be their dream job to the ‘shittiest job’.

 

Focus on countermeasures

Journalists, associations, and media companies, as well as many state institutions, have now developed countermeasures. The initiative of some interior ministries is a positive development. In Saxony and several other German states, increasingly comprehensive media protection concepts are being implemented to better protect media professionals from attacks at gatherings. In addition, public broadcasters in particular, as well as larger private media companies, have taken a whole range of protective measures for their employees, such as escorts, de-escalation seminars, or legal support services. However, Jessica Jana Dutz, co-author of the study, still sees many gaps:

Freelance journalists in particular are still not adequately protected in Germany. There are too few low-threshold, low-cost offers of protection for them. Journalists’ unions and initiatives are trying to fill this gap but even they have limited resources and cannot reach everyone.

Read the study [DE]

Feindbild Journalist 7

Key findings

  • No new negative record: with 56 attacks, the number of cases in 2022 declined since the previous year.
  • Demonstrations – the most dangerous workplace: 80 percent of all cases occurred at protests (45 of 56 cases), of which 60 percent (27 of 45 cases) occurred at protests related to COVID.
  • Trend stopped: the spread of attacks to the western German states has been interrupted (for now).
  • Focus on Saxony: with eleven cases, the Free State is again the most frequently affected federal state.
  • Assaults in the local area: with 12 assaults in 2022, three times as many local journalists were assaulted as in 2021.
  • Record month: 23 cases were recorded in January 2022 alone (41 percent of total cases), more than any other month.
  • 2015-2022 total: ECPMF documented 321 cases.
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Serb Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Call on the National Assembly to…

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Call on the National Assembly to reject defamation law amendments

The Media Freedom Rapid Response is concerned by the recent developments in Republika Srpska, one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the government has introduced amendments to the Criminal Code that would re-criminalise defamation.

In the discussions around the proposal, entity President Milorad Dodik accused journalists of lying, using strong derogatory language. Ahead of the session on 21 March, the undersigned partners urge members of the Republika Srpska National Assembly to reject the amendments.

 

On 31 October 2022, President Dodik published a thread on Twitter calling for the Minister of Justice to prepare new, and amend existing laws, with the goal to re-introduce defamation and insults as “criminal offences” in the Criminal Code of the Republika Srpska. This news was followed on 2 March 2023 by the National Assembly’ announcements that Republika Srpska had introduced draft amendments to the Criminal Code to re-criminalise defamation.

 

If approved by the National Assembly, the draft law would give way to arbitrary interpretation of what constitutes an insult or a degrading comment, and would allow for unjustified prosecution of journalists, members of civil society or organisations reporting on corruption and other public interest matters, and anyone writing publicly on social media. Republika Srpska had decriminalised defamation in 1999 in line with developing international standards and practices. Making defamation a crime again would be a direct hindrance to the principles of freedom of the press, and a conviction would lead to fines of between 3,000 and more than 50,000 euros.

 

The bill was strongly criticised by media workers and journalists’ organisations. On 14 March, journalists gathered in front of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska to protest the bill on criminal defamation, and appeal to the people’s deputies to dismiss the proposed amendments. The Parliament has postponed the discussion to debate the amendments to 21 March.

 

The discussions around the re-introduction of criminal defamation sparked unacceptable comments directed at journalists and media organisations during press conferences, often televised. Dodik on several occasions accused journalists of lying, while using strong derogatory language. This comes at a time when journalists in this entity are coming under increasing attacks and pressure: the recent interrogation of Nikola Morača, who works for the newspaper EuroBlic and the portal SrpskaInfo, and several editors and journalists, pressured by the police to reveal their sources; and the vandalism of the cars belonging to Morača and editor of Buka news portal Aleksandar Trifunović, are further concerning examples. Even before the beginning of the investigation Dodik accused the journalists of orchestrating the attack themselves.

 

Another worrying announcement by President Dodik is the introduction of the so-called “foreign agent law” on the activities of non-governmental organisations and associations – a copycat move from Georgia, whose bill was eventually withdrawn after being heavily criticised for its incompatibility with the laws protecting freedom of expression and freedom of association.

 

Our organisations strongly disagree with the proposed amendments and criminalisation of defamation and denounce any attempt to undermine, denigrate or hinder journalistic work. We will continue to closely monitor the situation in Republika Srpska in particular, and will respond to all threats to media freedom in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This includes the documentation of cases on the Mapping Media Freedom and the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists platforms.

Signed by:

  • ARTICLE 19 Europe 
  • European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) 
  • European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) 
  • Free Press Unlimited (FPU) 
  • International Press Institute (IPI) 
  • OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries. 

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Andrej Babiš

Czech Republic: What Andrej Babiš’s potential sale of Mafra…

Czech Republic: What Andrej Babiš’s potential sale of Mafra could mean for the media landscape

Reports of negotiations stir speculation about potential buyers for influential publishing group

 

By IPI contributor Vojtěch Berger

Andrej Babiš, the former Czech prime minister and oligarch, will probably offload his media. Paradoxically, not because he is withdrawing from politics, but so that he can stay in it.

 

This year it will be ten years since Babiš sent out what is probably his most famous tweet. The simple message set off wild speculation in mid-2013. A number of insiders were presuming the businessman, billionaire oligarch and then fledgling politician was going to acquire Ringier media outlets for his portfolio, including Blesk, the most widely read tabloid in the Czech Republic. In the end, it turned out it was the publishing house Mafra that became part of Babiš’s Agrofert conglomerate.

 

This controversial acquisition fired the starting gun on a decade of major changes in the Czech media market, as major media houses moved from foreign owners into the hands of Czech oligarchs. After ten years of Babiš‘ ownership Mafra is likely to be sold. The question is to whom and for how much.

 

From speculations about several potential bidders, the names of two big players in the energy business – Pavel Tykač and Daniel Křetínský – finally crystallized. In the case of Křetínský, the purchase of Mafra would significantly expand his already extensive media empire. In addition to the Czech market, Křetínský owns shares in several French print titles such as Le Monde, Marianne and Elle. He is also interested in investing in podcast platforms in France. Tykač does not own any media and would be a newcomer to the club of “media oligarchs”.

 

Oligarchization of the Czech media landscape

Babiš bought Mafra in 2013 from the German company Rheinisch-Bergische Verlagsgesellschaft. Over the next few years, other billionaires followed suit and snapped up legacy media as a means of strengthening influence alongside their core businesses.

 

The Czech portfolio of Swiss Ringier was bought by energy tycoon Daniel Křetínský. Dozens of regional daily newspapers and other magazines were bought from the German group Verlagsgruppe Passau by the financial group Penta. Under this growing media capture, different owners began to interfere in the editorial independence of their media to different degrees. In some, critical or investigative reporting on certain topics quietly became off limits.

 

As this oligarchization and its implications for media freedom continued, smaller independent projects popped up, often founded by journalists who quit after threats were made to their media’s editorial independence.

 

Babiš also soon added the commercial radio station Impuls to his media portfolio, followed by about 30 lifestyle magazines acquired from another German publisher, Bauer Media, in 2018. For years, these media were essentially used as promotional platforms for his election campaign.

 

When Babiš was running for president in January 2023, these magazines published a series of articles showing him as a great father and an ordinary and smiling man. There were also interviews with his wife and glimpses behind the scenes of the Babiš family.

 

Overall, the texts seemed like PR materials written on demand, but they pretended to be editorial content. The subliminal message to the readers – mainly to the female readers – was obvious: vote for Babiš. Similar texts in support of Babiš were published in the same lifestyle magazines in previous years. Previously, these titles did not focus on politics at all, but that changed when Babiš became their owner.

 

The Czech press law does not require newspapers and magazines to have a balance of opinion, so such texts are not in breach of the law, but undoubtedly highly problematic in terms of journalistic ethics.

 

Election defeat

This aggressive campaign and the support of his own media proved insufficient for  Babiš in the end, and his failure in the presidential election fueled speculation that he would sell Mafra.

 

Rumours that the publishing house might change hands appeared last autumn, and the new year brought a new name of a possible buyer. Previously, there was speculation about the aforementioned Daniel Křetínský. But in February, another billionaire with an energy business, Pavel Tykač, confirmed his interest in Mafra and that he had started ongoing negotiations. He told Czech Radio that one of his motivations to purchase the media was “so that it does not fall into some hands that will use it in a way that would not be in the interest of this country”.

 

Mafra’s economic results have not been impressive in recent years. The daily newspapers led by Mlada fronta Dnes and Lidove noviny are losing money, with operating losses are in the tens of millions, according to the magazine Reporter. However, the company’s lifestyle magazines are economically stable and the internet portals with radio Impuls are profitable. Overall, the Mafra media group has repeatedly made losses over the past three years.

 

This suggests that interest in the media house is not so much motivated by profit as by the potential influence that Mafra offers its owner. The business of both Pavel Tykač (Sev.en Energy) and Daniel Křetínský (EPH holding) is not based on media, but primarily on coal mining, electricity and heat production and distribution. From there, they can subsidize any losses of their media holdings.

 

However, it would be a mistake to say that the whole transaction is not about profit at all. The energy business is inherently dependent on good relations with the state and municipalities, and the Czech state has so far generously subsidized the oligarchs with state advertising, which has almost exclusively ended up with the big media houses, like Mafra or Křetínský’s CNC. This fragile symbiosis is likely to continue, despite promises by the government of Petr Fiala to change the state advertising system in order to support smaller independent media. After the government abolished the media and disinformation commissioner in mid-February, the media appears to have fallen off the cabinet’s agenda.

 

Together, the titles of the Mafra publishing house have a reach of 3.23 million readers, according to last year’s figures, while Daniel Křetínský’s second CNC reaches 3.08 million readers. This shows how much Křetínský would strengthen his market position by buying Mafra.

 

Tightening controls on media ownership

The question is why Andrej Babiš wants to get rid of this influence and why he wants to do it now. The answer may sound paradoxical: because of politics.

 

Ten years ago Babiš bought Mafra precisely to strengthen his political clout. But today the ownership of Mafra may make it more difficult for him to remain in politics. After losing the presidential election, Babiš has already announced that he wants to remain a member of parliament.

 

However, a government amendment to the Conflict of Interest Act that is currently making its way through the legislative process would hit his media business hard.

 

The new rules, if passed, would ban public officials from owning or publishing media. Crucially, this ban would apply to the ultimate owner of the media company, not just the controlling person or entity. It would include members of the government and serving MPs.

 

According to the authors of the bill, the amendment will prevent circumvention of the conflict of interest law and should stop efforts by politicians to influence media houses through their ownership, or to make money from public contracts, subsidies or investment incentives. This would be a major issue for Babiš.

 

According to the register of beneficial owners, the real owner of Agrofert holding, which includes the media house Mafra, is Babiš. So far, it has been enough for him to transfer his assets to trust funds in 2017, thus complying with the current, more lenient law. During this time, however, he has faced criticism that he continues to control his companies.

 

In his media, this was proven by the positive writings in his magazines and obvious PR for Babiš before this year’s presidential campaign and in previous years. The Mafra daily newspapers were under permanent suspicion of favouring Babiš when they reported less extensively or with different accents on his affairs and conflicts of interest than other media. In other cases, they completely ignored corruption scandals involving Babiš.

 

It is to be expected that the next owner of Mafra will not abuse these media in such a blatant way, if only because neither Tykač nor Křetínský (if one of them is indeed the buyer) is directly involved in politics.

 

However, both could undoubtedly use the group’s media influence to benefit their other business. Even after the sale of Mafra, most of the Czech media will remain firmly in the hands of oligarchs.

This article is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries.

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Malta PM Residence

Malta: Lack of proper public consultation affects the quality…

Malta: Lack of proper public consultation affects the quality of media laws

Seemingly indifferent attitude of government towards consultation has resulted in weak draft media laws

 

By IPI contributor Elizabeth De Gaetano, The Shift News

The 2018 assassination of Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová in Slovakia occurred just months after that of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in October 2017, raising urgent questions about the state of press freedom in both countries. However, the outcomes could not be more different.

 

While Kuciak’s death brought investigative journalism to the forefront of public debate and led to legislation to better protect journalists, the same cannot be said for Malta, where justice for Caruana Galizia remains elusive as the government resists much-needed reforms.

 

In Malta, a lack of political will and differing interpretations of what constitutes public engagement has resulted in a public consultation process on proposed media legislation that produced no significant outcome. It also means that several laws affecting press freedom in Malta are flawed in their current form.

 

On February 15, the government-appointed Committee of Media Experts held a half-day conference as part of a public consultation on the proposed legislation to protect journalism in Malta. The Minister of Justice, Jonathan Attard, responsible for the proposed legislation, had been invited to speak at the conference. However, he did not attend or send a representative in his stead.

 

The chairman of the committee, retired judge Michael Mallia, who also chaired the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry, told the audience. “Where it [the exercise] goes from here, I cannot say,” but not before noting that the government appeared to be ignoring the committee’s most significant recommendations.

 

Public consultation as a box-ticking exercise

This lack of progress on the government’s proposed changes to Malta’s media laws is unsurprising, given how fraught the entire process has been.

 

In July 2021, an independent public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Caruana Galizia’s murder concluded that the state “should bear responsibility for the murder”. Although Prime Minister Robert Abela called an extraordinary parliamentary session to discuss the inquiry’s report, he never committed to a timetable for implementing the inquiry’s recommendations.

 

The board’s recommendations for journalism include various laws and constitutional changes, including a law to ensure journalism is self-regulated and a constitutional amendment recognising an individual’s right to receive information from the state. The board also recommended a revision of Malta’s Freedom of Information Act (FOI) and a revision of the constitutional provisions of Malta’s Broadcasting Authority.

 

To date, Malta’s government has only fully implemented one of the 28 key recommendations made by the board of inquiry.

 

When the opposition later tabled several bills in parliament based on the public inquiry’s recommendations, the government shot them down.

 

Instead, it hastily set up a Committee of Media Experts who were given three months to submit their comments and suggestions on the draft laws already prepared by the government but who were never consulted during the drafting process. Furthermore, the government demanded that the committee keep its discussions confidential, excluding many media and journalism stakeholders.

 

The Committee of Media Experts then submitted its recommendations and proposals in June. But nothing was heard until late September when Justice Minister Jonathan Attard made the government’s proposals public at a press conference.

 

As a result, the committee’s main recommendations were ignored, and the draft law was submitted to parliament in early October. These included proposed amendments to the law on the safety of journalists and on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), which, however, did not meet international standards.

 

More than a hundred Maltese journalists, academics and artists then wrote to Prime Minister Robert Abela, urging him to hold a public consultation on the proposed legislation.

 

The prime minister initially resisted, but after two members of the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IĠM) threatened to withdraw from the committee of experts, he finally halted the parliamentary process and promised to open the legislation to public scrutiny.

 

In practice, all the government did was delegate the public consultation process to the Media Experts Committee. The same committee, whose main recommendations had already been ignored and which the government blamed for the lack of consultation, was tasked with consulting the public and returning with a revised set of recommendations.

 

Differing views on what constitutes public consultation

When the media community wrote to the prime minister asking him to open the proposed legislation to wider scrutiny, he insisted that the committee could have consulted with whomever it wished – although the published correspondence by the committee shows this was not the case.

 

Similarly, in an official response to an alert from the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Safety of Journalists, Minister of Justice Jonathan Attard repeatedly insisted that the government had held broad public consultations with various stakeholders on its proposed media bills.

 

His response also stated that the bills tabled in the House of Representatives on January 27, 2022 were available to the public and “open for scrutiny and review by the public at large”.

 

The minister was referring to a document containing an early draft of the legislative proposals for the media that the prime minister presented in parliament following a parliamentary debate in which he claimed the opposition had been consulted about the draft media proposals.

 

Legal experts pointed out that tabling a document in the House of Representatives because it was mentioned in a speech in Parliament does not amount to public consultation.

 

Legislation without consultation

These loose notions of what constitutes public consultation by Malta’s top officials point to a wider problem in the government’s approach when drafting legislation.

 

The European Commission’s 2022 Rule of Law Report noted with concern that Malta has no rules or guidelines on public participation in the drafting of legislation. There are, however, various channels for consulting the public, but these are subject to the discretion of the Ministry preparing the initiative. Nor is the government bound or required to publish the feedback it receives.

 

This discretion may explain why ministers in Malta have such a poor grasp of what a full public consultation should entail and why the government often chooses not to consult at all. This has affected several laws related to media freedom in Malta.

 

For example, the amendment of Malta’s Protection of Whistleblowers Act was passed without any public consultation and is considered inadequate. The law reform was passed just in time to meet the deadline for implementing the EU directive on improving the protection of whistleblowers.

 

According to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) rapporteur Pieter Omtzigt, the reform does not provide any real protection for whistleblowers and “ignores the Directive’s requirements for transparency, including regular monitoring of the impact of the legislation”, adding that the law was “rushed through without any meaningful consultation”.

 

A recent report by the civil society group Reppublika also outlined how the amended law failed to address a fundamental flaw, namely the extent of government influence over whether a potential witness is granted whistleblower status.

 

In another instance, the government issued a legal notice empowering the director general of the court – a state official who reports directly to the Ministry of Justice – to decide which court judgments can be removed from the online database of judgements available to the public, without any criteria or controls to ensure that the system is not abused. Media organisations and legal experts strongly opposed the move.

 

The same can be said of the legislative reform of Malta’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. Not only has there been no public consultation, but the government is refusing to publish the report it commissioned to review the law.

 

The report was commissioned following pressure by the Council of Europe because the current law cannot guarantee its stated aim. But despite its completion two years ago with an accompanying bill to be presented to Parliament, the report is being kept under wraps. A Freedom of Information request by The Shift to see the report was also refused.

 

Malta and Slovakia – same problem, different results

In Slovakia, the assassinations of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová led to far-reaching changes, including progress on press freedom. In Malta, the fifth anniversary of Caruana Galizia’s killing was marked by a lack of significant reform.

 

While in Malta, the independent media community struggles to make headway with the government, in Slovakia, legislative reforms adopted by the current government were approved after regular consultations with its journalistic stakeholders. These included important bills strengthening the legal protection of the confidentiality of journalistic sources and increasing the transparency of media ownership and funding.

 

In Malta, the government refuses to publish its report on amendments to its FOI laws. In Slovakia, freedom of information and government transparency rules have improved significantly, and the country now has one of the best FOI laws in Europe.

 

This is not to say that there are no challenges to media freedom in Slovakia, and the fight against impunity is not over.  But if the quality of legislation can also be judged by the level of consultation that precedes it, Slovakia and Malta have respectively illustrated what the resulting legislation looks like with and without broad consultation.

This article was commissioned is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries. The project is co-funded by the European Commission.

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Robert Abela Malta media freedom

Malta: Press freedom groups urge PM to deliver strong…

Malta: Press freedom groups urge PM to deliver strong media law reforms

16 March 2023

 

Dear Prime Minister Robert Abela,

 

The undersigned international press freedom and journalists organisations are today writing to urge your government to follow up on the recent public consultation into media law reforms by implementing changes which will significantly strengthen the draft legislation. As the monthly memorial service for the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia is held in central Valletta today, we also renew our call for these reforms to fully implement the recommendations of the independent inquiry into her murder.

 

As our organisations have previously outlined, the current draft bills for improving protection of the media presented in September 2022 fail to create the systemic reforms required to foster an enabling environment for free and independent journalism. We therefore welcome the government’s belated decision, following criticism, to freeze parliamentary debate on the three bills to give time for the Committee of Experts to carry out a consultative process.

 

To ensure the public consultation is not simply a box-ticking exercise, we now urge your government to properly consider and implement the proposals for strengthening the media bills developed during the consultation. Amendments should also implement the recommendations of the government-appointed Committee of Experts and other key domestic and international stakeholders. We also call on your administration to prove a clear timeline for the next steps of the legislative process and to ensure effective transparency regarding that process. This should involve more regular press briefings, substantive responses to media inquiries, publication of reports of meetings about the law, and scheduled opportunities for international civil society organisations to contribute to the reform process.

 

Any moves to improve the draft legislation must be grounded in the recommendations set out in the report of the landmark 2021 Public Inquiry report. This should include the constitutional recognition of journalism as the fourth pillar of democracy and introduce effective new laws to address impunity, corruption and the abuse of power. Such changes must at the very least meet international standards on the protection and safety of journalists and freedom of the media, including the strengthening of the government’s watered-down anti-SLAPP legislation. 

 

These reforms should also follow the recommendations of two legal analyses conducted by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and the recommendations by the European Commission in its 2022 Rule of Law Country Chapter on Malta, as well as from the European Parliament’s Democracy, Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights Monitoring Group.

 

As the Public Inquiry identified, the Maltese state bears responsibility for allowing the toxic conditions in which the murder of a journalist took place to fester. We believe your government bears fundamental responsibility for ensuring that systemic reforms are carried out to ensure such a heinous killing is never committed again. We urge you to, at a minimum, implement the proposals put forward during the public consultation and follow the advice of the Committee of Experts in the next stages of the legislative process. Daphne Caruana Galizia and her family deserve no less.

 

Our international press freedom and journalists organisations will continue to closely monitor this situation and remain at your disposal for a meeting to share our combined expert opinions on these matters.

Signed by:

  • ARTICLE 19 Europe
  • Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
  • European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
  • European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
  • Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
  • International Press Institute (IPI)
  • OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)
  • Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries. 

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Action needed: The European Commission Safety of Journalists Recommendation

Action needed: The European Commission Safety of Journalists Recommendation

Today, 16 March 2023, marks 18 months since the adoption by the European Commission of its Recommendation to the Member States on ensuring the protection, safety and empowerment of journalists and other media professionals in the European Union. The European Commission is due to perform an evaluation based on key performance indicators, to take stock of the progress achieved by the Member States. In this context, the partners in the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) call on the European Commission and the Member States to develop comprehensive and regular reporting mechanisms that involve all key stakeholders to effectively measure and continually follow up on the Recommendation’s implementation.

We urge the Member States to take action for the safety of journalists without further delay and implement the provisions of the Recommendation.

 

The European Commission’s Recommendation came at a critical time. As documented by the MFRR on our Mapping Media Freedom platform and analysed in the Monitoring Reports, as well as the Council of Europe’s Platform to promote the protection of journalism and the safety of journalists, the safety of journalists in Europe is in deep crisis. Reporters across the Union face many forms of pressure and attacks. In 2022, the MFRR recorded 415 alerts in EU Member States. Verbal attacks such as intimidation and threats or insults constituted the main type of incident, involving 42% of all alerts, while physical attacks were involved in 20% of cases and attacks to property in 17%. The latest Annual Report by the Council of Europe Platform partners meanwhile characterises the situation as a “context of a continued degradation of press freedom across the continent”.

 

At the time of its publication, the MFRR partners underlined that the key to the Recommendation’s success will lie in following up on its outcomes and holding the Member States to account. Despite clear international laws and standards for improving journalists’ safety, they did too little to turn the tide on the rising number of attacks on journalists. The Recommendation in this regard explicitly aims to support the implementation of the Council of Europe’s standards, particularly its Recommendation 2016(4).

 

To help kickstart the conversation on the Recommendation’s implementation, the MFRR is currently surveying EU-based affiliates of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), which are journalists’ unions and professional associations, on the actions and progress achieved so far. Their active involvement, and that of journalists and media workers more broadly, by the Member States and the European Commission in putting the Recommendation into practice is central to ensuring that the measures taken by Member States are effective. The survey focuses, in particular, on those specific recommendations that explicitly call for the involvement of journalists’ representatives. While the MFRR will publish the full results of the survey later this Spring, three key preliminary findings are worth highlighting now:

 

  • After 18 months, the implementation of the Recommendation is very uneven, with pronounced differences between the Member States and from one recommendation to another.
  • Evaluating the implementation status is a nuanced undertaking, with our research indicating many instances of partial implementation.
  • Obtaining a clear picture of any progress achieved becomes even more challenging when considering the impact. For one, some of the implemented measures and actions may need time to yield results, and it may simply be too early to draw either positive or negative conclusions about their effectiveness. In some other cases, even partial implementation of a recommendation has had a positive impact already, which can provide helpful insight on how to proceed with structuring further reforms for the Member State involved or for others who are lagging behind even further.

 

Although merely preliminary, these findings are nevertheless instructive as to the task ahead for the Member States and the Commission. It is clear that they must develop reporting and evaluation tools and procedures at national and regional levels that result in a meaningful assessment of the measures and actions that have been undertaken to implement the Recommendation. Measuring performance will require a nuanced approach to collecting data and developing indicators to capture the complexity of the challenge at hand. Only then will the Recommendation be able to deliver on its aim of strengthening media freedom and pluralism by promoting joint and coordinated efforts by the Member States. Moreover, given the uneven implementation, the process focusing on the Recommendation’s implementation evidently cannot be a one-off. Sustained engagement will be needed going forward and must involve all relevant stakeholders, including journalists and media workers, their associations and unions, civil society and media owners.

 

As concerns the design of this process, we believe useful lessons can be drawn from the experience with the Rule of Law reports to ensure its credibility, inclusiveness and impact. The MFRR partners call on the European Commission and Member States to develop a transparent process for collecting and evaluating pertinent data. Core information about all main aspects should be communicated well ahead of time. This should include clear timelines, criteria for selecting stakeholders based on protocols established jointly with non-State actors, and a transparent methodology for processing their input. To ensure the process generates action, it should result in specific recommendations and follow-up questions, guiding governments on the actions needed to address identified shortcomings, enabling civil society to monitor follow-up action and seek accountability, and promoting a transparent and participatory dialogue between all stakeholders.

Signed by:

  • ARTICLE 19 Europe
  • European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
  • European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
  • International Press Institute
  • OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries.

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Slavko Ćuruvija. Photo by Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation / Predrag Mitić

Slavko Ćuruvija: Cycle of impunity for killing of journalists…

Slavko Ćuruvija: Cycle of impunity for killing of journalists in Serbia must be broken

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 undesigned 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 editor and founder of the Daily Telegraph and Evropljanin was killed in Belgrade on 11 April 1999, the implications of the decision of the five-member panel of judges for Serbia are hard to overstate.

 

Most significantly, the confirmation of the verdicts sentencing the defendants to a total of 100 years in prison would finally bring to a close a more than two-decade long fight for justice led by Ćuruvija’s family, loved ones, colleagues and civil society organisations.

 

Attaining the convictions would represent a remarkable achievement for those who have sacrificed so much to ensure that Ćuruvija’s legacy is honoured and those who gunned him down at the entrance of his apartment are not able to act with impunity.

 

Given that no one has ever been convicted of the murder of a journalist in Serbia’s modern history, this would represent a vital judicial milestone. Amidst the current toxic climate for the safety of journalists in Serbia, it would also send a clear message that anyone considering trying to attack or silence a journalist will not escape accountability.

 

More widely, this appeal verdict – which shines a light on the crimes of the Milošević regime – represents a timely litmus test for the rule of law and democracy in Serbia, as well as of the resolve of authorities trying to solve the spate of killings of journalists in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

 

If high-level state officials are convicted, it will give much-needed hope that justice can, even decades after the crimes were committed, be achieved for other journalists killed amidst the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia: Milan Pantić in 2001, and Dada Vujasinović, the circumstances of whose death in 1994 was never fully established.

 

As we await the final verdict in the coming months, our organisations today restate our solidarity with Slavko Ćuruvija’s family, his widow Branka Prpa, and all those who have been so fundamental to the campaign for justice, including journalists and media associations, the Commission to Investigate the Murder of Journalists and the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation.

 

Moving forward, we hope justice for Slavko Ćuruvija will be secured and that the vicious cycle of impunity for the killings of journalists in Serbia will, finally, be broken.

Signed by:

  • European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
  • European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
  • Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
  • International Press Institute (IPI)
  • OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)
  • SafeJournalists Network members:
  • Association of Journalists of Kosovo
  • Association of Journalists of Macedonia
  • BH Journalists Association
  • Croatian Journalists’ Association
  • Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
  • Trade Union of Media of Montenegro
  • Trade Union of Croatian Journalists

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

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Italy: Prosecutor issues seizure order for article published by…

Italy: Prosecutor issues seizure order for article published by newspaper Domani

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 Social Affairs of the current government. No journalists expressing their opinion or investigating on matters of public interest should fear nor be exposed to intimidation, conviction, or imprisonment.

 

On March 3, 2023, journalists Giovanni Tizian and Nello Trocchia found out that Durigon had initiated a legal action through the visit of two police officers knocking at Domani’s newsroom door who presented them with a seizure order for an article they had authored. The seizure order mentioned that the undersecretary of Labour had initiated a criminal defamation lawsuit against “unknowns”. It is understood the criminal complaint identifies only the article as its subject. 

 

The article by Tizian and Trocchia, published in January 2023, revealed Durigon’s alleged ties with individuals connected with local criminal organisations. The report examined how in 2018, while serving as an MP and national secretary of the Italian General Labour Union, Durigon had supported the career of a now convicted union member, Simone Di Marcantonio. In January, Di Marcantonio was found guilty in the first instance of extortion, linked to a criminal clan operating in the province of Latina. Di Marcantonio is also indicted for acting as a front man for a Calabrian ‘ndrangheta boss.

 

In response to Domani’s article, Durigon filed a complaint for criminal defamation through the press, based on article 13 of Italian criminal code 47/1948, a provision carrying prison sentences of up to six years, which was ruled unconstitutional by the Italian Constitutional Court (ruling 150/2021).

 

Following Durigon’s complaint, the Italian prosecutor ordered the seizure of a hard copy of the indicted article, despite the fact that Tizian and Trocchia’s report was fully available on Domani’s webpage. Such atypical proceedings by the Court of Rome represent an alarming abuse of legal actions at the hands of Italian authorities and public officials. This unnecessary intrusion into Domani’s newsroom signals Italian authorities’ increasing recourse to tactics aimed at intimidating and silencing independent voices and media, raising criticism towards public officials.

 

Italian authorities’ decision to resort to a seizure order has a serious chilling effect. Together with a rising number of defamation lawsuits brought by members of the current government, it indicates a worrying deterioration of press freedom in Italy. Along with Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, Minister of Infrastructures Matteo Salvini and Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, Durigon is the fourth member of the current Italian government resorting to a legal action to silence criticism from the press. 

 

Current Italian government officials have been increasingly responding to articles reporting on issues of public interest with lawsuits. This is an alarming trend. Public figures holding elected office have a duty to act responsibly and be prepared to accept a higher level of public scrutiny, in accordance with both national and international rulings.

 

In expressing our solidarity with Domani’s newsroom, we therefore urge the competent authorities to refrain from resorting to such unjustified intimidatory practices towards Domani and any other newsroom in the future. We also call on Durigon to withdraw his criminal defamation complaint. 

 

More widely, we urge the Italian Parliament to adopt a comprehensive reform of defamation laws in Italy in line with international freedom of expression standards as a matter of urgency. This long overdue reform should centre on the decriminalisation of defamation and set limits within civil law on the amount in damages that can be sought to avoid creating undue obstacles to the journalistic profession. We also urge the Parliament to start a discussion to follow up on the Recommendations included in the EU Anti-SLAPPs initiative and to support the adoption of an advanced text of the EU Anti-SLAPPs Directive. 

 

Our organisations will continue to closely monitor this situation involving Domani and will respond to all threats to media freedom in Italy, including the documentation of cases on the Mapping Media Freedom platform.

Signed by:

  • ARTICLE 19 Europe
  • European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
  • European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
  • Free Press Unlimited
  • Greenpeace Italia
  • International Press Institute (IPI)
  • Meglio Legale Aps
  • OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)
  • The Good Lobby Italia

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries.

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Emilia Șercan

Romania: In conversation with investigative journalist Emilia Șercan

Romania: In conversation with investigative journalist Emilia Șercan

Investigating academic fraud committed by Romanian public figures. This is Emilia Șercan’s expertise. Freelance investigative journalist and senior lecturer at the University of Bucharest, she has been targeted by a renewed campaign of discreditation after her revelations that the Minister of Interior had plagiarised his PhD thesis. Unlike one year ago, when she was targeted by a jarring kompromat campaign involving the leaking of evidence from the Criminal Investigation Services, this time the smear campaign appears to be politically directed by one of the Romanian ruling parties.

 

Interview conducted by Sielke Kelner, Researcher and Advocacy Officer at OBC Transeuropa.

You have been facing a lot of pressure in the past three months. How are you holding up?

I am very tired because I have experienced a horrible time. I wish I had a couple of  days to catch my breath. I feel it is getting harder and harder to cope with the consequences of the misconduct of the Romanian justice system and politicians.

 

We spoke last November, and back then you had mentioned to me you were working on an investigative piece and a few weeks later, I saw your article on Lucian Bode. Did this new smear campaign start right after the publication of your article?

Yes, it did. This new wave of pressure came after I wrote about the doctoral thesis of the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode. The degree of confrontation and hostility I have been facing this time signalled a new peak of aggression characterising the Romanian public space. A multitude of websites, including media outlets which receive public funding, as well as outlets run by former journalists who are now political members of the National Liberal Party, have launched a series of attacks to discredit me, spreading the rumour that I want to run for the Presidency of Romania. They claim that this is the reason why I have committed to writing about the doctoral theses of a number of politicians. They have been trying as well to tie my journalistic approach to a political party, although I have no political affiliation or sympathies. I have publicly expressed that I have not the slightest connection with any political party. Nevertheless, they implied that this is in fact a political attack on Minister Lucian Bode. To be sure, I have been investigating academic fraud for the past eight years. For the past eight years, I have been properly doing my job as a journalist, not because I had any political interest. After having been subjected to a set of intimidations, pressure, death threats and attempts to compromise, now they have devised another way of discrediting my work by saying that I intend to run for president. They profiled me, insinuating I mirror Maia Sandu, the President of the Republic of Moldova. Just like her, they claim, I am a small, fragile woman with a political agenda. Let me stress this point again: I have never had the intention of becoming a politician. I am a journalist and that is what I will always be for the rest of my life.

 

Why do Romanian politicians fear your investigation?

Politicians are scared of the things they’ve done and don’t want the public to know about.  This time, the public efforts to discredit and attack me have to do with  the Minister of Interior’s fear of being labelled a plagiarist. It is also related to the role as Secretary General that Lucian Bode plays within the National Liberal Party. He is the one who leads the National Liberal Party (NLP), despite the fact that the NLP President is Romania’s PM, Nicolae Ciucă, but Ciucă has little political experience and is not suitable in politics. Thus, my revelations about Lucian Bode’s academic fraud constituted a big blow, not only to the Government, showing that the Minister of Interior is a plagiarist, but also to the National Liberal Party [governing party and party of the President of Romania Klaus Iohannis]. Furthermore, my investigation represented a big blow to the Romanian Intelligence Service Academy, given that the rector of this institution coordinated Lucian Bode’s thesis, a plagiarised doctoral thesis. Finally, it constituted a blow to the Babes Bolyai University, which tried to evade academic verification. They tried to make sure that it didn’t come to this result. The attacks directed against me and the attempt to discredit the investigation peaked when eventually Babes Bolyai University admitted that the doctoral thesis was plagiarised.

 

So, we’re talking about political interference.

For this last smear campaign, there is documented evidence of political interference. Two articles were published on two websites – websites with dodgy domains registered outside of Romania, and who share no details about their owners nor their editorial teams. The content published by these websites promotes propaganda for the National Liberal Party. Furthermore, an advertising agency that has stipulated contracts with the National Liberal Party disseminated those articles  on Facebook, popping up as sponsored articles on the social media platform. An investigation conducted by Misreport, a Romanian website dedicated to checking fake news and misinformation, found evidence that an advertising agency had been paid for the distribution of  those articles on Facebook, an agency which has contracts in place with the National Liberal Party, including the last rounds of elections that took place in 2020, both at local and central level.

 

Do you think it is strictly a personal attack or represents a broader threatening message directed at journalism in Romania?

There’s evidence demonstrating that the Liberal National Party has paid for the smear campaigns and the online distribution of articles against me. The current attack is different from the previous ones, because it looks like the result of a very high concentration of forces. This sort of thing happens when there is someone giving specific orders. And such instructions could have originated within a political party. This is also a clear signal directed towards the very small community of independent journalists in Romania, the ones left. I would like to mention that at present in Romania, we experience a complicated situation when it comes to the press, and this is particularly difficult when we talk about Romanian mainstream press. About 80 percent of the press in Romania is funded by political parties, which translates into an extensive political control over the press. Under these conditions, characterised by a press industry which is almost entirely politically funded or controlled, independent voices and independent journalists who criticise politicians in the current governing coalition are extremely vulnerable and can easily come under attack, just as I have. To be sure, investigative departments are rare in Romania. There are a few small websites, teams of journalists who are not subjected to political control, and who must face the inherent difficulties of how to secure funding. Driven by their own passion for the press, for justice, and for truth, they continued to write and produce material on disturbing subjects for the political class.

 

Actually, you write as a freelancer for PressOne

Yes, I write as a freelancer for PressOne. I have a long-standing collaboration with them, and I realise that perhaps if it was not for them, the only way to publish my investigations would have entailed starting a blog. There are very low chances that I would have been published by an outlet in Romania.

 

Does morality have any value in the Romanian public space or not?

It has almost no value. This is the extremely sad conclusion I have come to after eight years of writing about academic misconduct. In Romania, politicians have made a major effort to normalise shame and to normalise plagiarism.

 

Have you been granted solidarity?

There were colleagues who supported me, there were colleagues who were with me during this period. International support really meant a lot to me. I received the support of international organisations, international media organisations which have a comprehensive understanding of the challenges posed to journalists in different countries where freedom of expression and physical integrity of journalists are under threat. The solidarity that I have received both in the country and especially from international media organisations and from some international institutions, European institutions, has mattered a lot. Theoretically, my profile is the most vulnerable, prone to being attacked and harassed. And for a freelance female journalist, it means a lot to know that you are not alone.

 

Do you perceive yourself as a role model for young female journalists?

Yesterday, I started the second academic semester at the University of Bucharest by delivering a class to a cohort of first year journalism students. We introduced ourselves, and one of the students told me that she enrolled because of me, because I was a role model for her. Her revelation made me very happy and excited, obviously. Up until today I was told by colleagues that what I do is extraordinary, but to see that I inspired a young 18-years-old woman to come to college because she saw what I do, well, I find it extraordinary. I realise that this has the power to impact female role models. In the past decades, when students joined our department, they were mostly inspired by showbiz and celebrities. Going to college because you have a role model, a female journalist doing investigative journalism, I think is a big change.

 

You have been nominated for the Jan Kuciak Award. How does it feel to be internationally recognized for the work you do?

First of all, it was a surprise and I feel very excited when I think about it, because you realise that you get international recognition after years of work, which for the most part has gone uncredited by other journalists in Romania. Because often it happened that the stories I covered did not appear in the mainstream press. When I was notified about the nomination, I got emotional, and I called my editor and shared the news with her. The joy, and the surprise, all rolled into one. We cried together on the phone. I would like to take the chance to mention how important Matthew Caruana Galizia’s support was for this nomination. He encouraged me to enter and participate in this award. We met in 2019, at an event organised within the European Parliament. Shortly after, when I received a number of death threats, in a context in which police investigation stalled, I sought his help and he responded. Since then, we have stayed in touch.

This statement was coordinated by OBC Transeuropa as part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries. 

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Candles are placed during a march in memory of murdered Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova.

Analysis: How much has media freedom in Slovakia changed…

Analysis: How much has media freedom in Slovakia changed five years after Ján Kuciak murder?

This week much of Slovakia’s media community came together in Bratislava to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the killing of investigative journalist Já​​n Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová.

By IPI Europe Advocacy Officer Jamie Wiseman

 

The path to full justice for the double murder has been slow. The hitman and an intermediary are behind bars serving hefty sentences. Now the verdict in the retrial of the alleged mastermind, Marian Kočner, and his associate is expected in the coming months.

 

Against this backdrop, the messages conveyed during commemorative events this week continue to be the need for full justice, an end to the corrosive culture of corruption and impunity in which the assassination took place, and the need to honour Kuciak’s legacy.

 

The five-year anniversary also offered an opportunity to look back and reflect on whether, half a decade later, the changes in Slovak politics, judicial authorities, media and society at large have been systemic enough to ensure such an appalling crime is never committed again.

 

Much has changed in Slovakia since 21 February 2018. Much has not. And while the landscape for press freedom has undergone clear improvement in recent years, there is a palpable sense that, as the country heads into early elections, these gains appear increasingly fragile.

Hard won progress

Turning first to look at the positives, the widespread reforms to the judicial and law enforcement bodies ushered in by the 2020 election victory of anti-corruption party OĽaNO have led to positive changes in how police deal with threats journalists. These issues are taken far more seriously and, since the murder, physical attacks on journalists have been rare.

 

The sweeping away from power of the Smer-SD party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico – and the subsequent investigations and arrest of high-level officials on corruption charges – have also helped dent the ingrained sense that corrupt elites can act with impunity. Law-enforcement authorities are finally prosecuting corruption unearthed by journalists.

 

While many challenges remain to unravel this state capture and few high-level convictions have so far been secured, these reforms appear to have helped break down, at least for now, the nexus of political, business and judicial and networks that polluted the rule of law and created the conditions in which a journalist could be killed.

 

Elsewhere, the recent creation of Safe.Journalism.sk, a platform led by the Investigative Centre of Ján Kuciak (ICJK) for journalists to report threats and receive support, is a timely initiative that can help increase safety amongst the journalistic profession. The engagement of police and prosecutorial authorities in prosecuting attacks reported to them will be vital.

 

Legislative reforms passed by the current government, approved after consultation with the journalistic community, have also been positive overall. These include the modernisation of media laws in 2022 which strengthened legal protection for source confidentiality for journalists from online media. New rules on the transparency of media ownership and funding – including obligations for declaring media platforms’ ultimate financial owners – should likewise help tackle disinformation and increase citizens’ trust in the news they consume.

 

At the systemic levels, robust rules on horizontal and cross media concentration continue to ensure the media ecosystem enjoys relatively healthy levels of pluralism, especially compared to other countries in Central Europe. The country’s landscape for media regulation remains independent. A number of new, nimble digital media outlets are successfully experimenting with new business models and providing high quality news.

 

The landscape for Freedom of Information (FOI) and government transparency have been significantly improved, with Slovakia’s FOI legislation now among the best in Europe. Unique amendments passed in 2022 that ban journalists from being sued for publishing information obtained through FOI should be a model for Europe.

 

Serious challenges persist

Despite these positive changes, however, media in Slovakia continue to face many challenges in the exercise of free and independent journalism. Most seriously, verbal attacks and denigrating smear campaigns by high-level politicians continue. Vulgar tirades by Fico were replaced by populist attacks by Igor Matovič, former PM and chairman of the governing party OĽaNO. Even on the day of the anniversary, Matovič abused the memory of Kuciak murder to try and delegitimise critical media reporting. While political leaders vow to denounce such threats, their pledges fall short when it comes to members of their own political parties.

 

This demonization of journalists acts as a signpost for online abuse of journalists and deliberately sows distrust in independent media in the public, fostering further polarization. Worse yet, this harassment is one the rise. According to a recently published survey of more than 400 journalists organized by the Investigative Centre of Ján Kuciak, around two thirds of media workers have experienced some form of threat of attack within the last year. Online harassment is the most common threat. This behaviour is normalized by thin-skinned politicians who see journalists not as watchdogs but as scapegoats. Left unchecked, this divisive rhetoric can – as we tragically saw in the run up to the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta – create a climate in which critical and investigative journalists are legitimate and isolated targets for attack.

 

It is shocking it is that in a country where a journalist was murdered just five years ago, leading politicians continue to launch vicious verbal attacks against the press and apparently having learned nothing.

 

Meanwhile, the mass, illegal surveillance of journalists carried out before the killing on behalf of Kočner remains unpunished and questions remain unanswered about the possible involvement of individuals within state authorities. Rather than being a thing of the past, the surveillance in 2021 of a prominent journalist from independent media outlet Denník N also bore alarming echoes of the mass surveillance carried out under the previous Fico government.

 

In the legal sphere, while the Justice Ministry has tabled long overdue amendments to the criminal code, journalists convicted of defamation in Slovakia still face prison sentences of between two and eight years. The current law, though never enforced by the courts, creates a chilling effect and remains among the harshest in Europe. The lack of a functioning majority in parliament makes it unlikely such reforms will be passed before the election. Likewise, a much-needed amendment to the criminal code providing aggravated penalties for crimes committed against journalists due to their work remains parked in the ministry. Though not as prevalent in other EU countries, vexatious lawsuits and SLAPPs pose a serious legal threat.

 

While the public broadcaster RTVS has benefited from process of depoliticization and the transparent appointment of a respected new Director General, the government failed to win support in parliament for its proposed reforms to the selection process for the Director General and the oversight council. Until these laws governing RTVS are updated, the broadcaster will continue to be open to interference and politicized appointments by undemocratic forces. More pressingly, the scrapping of the licence fees for RTVS by the government as part of its broader budget negotiations has left the broadcaster in a precarious position. Unless a sustainable new financing model is found in the coming months, it will be left operating in a deficit by June 2023.

 

Oligarchic ownership of many of the country’s largest private media remains a threat to editorial independence This situation worse at the regional and local level, where media face serious threats to their editorial independence due to the proximity to, and financial dependence on, municipal administrations. The lack of transparency in the criteria used for the allocation of state advertising meanwhile continues to pose concerns. A much-criticized levy on the largest private broadcasters, though later scrapped, led to concern about retaliatory taxes in response to critical reporting on the government. It is clear that challenges persist.

 

Fragile progress in the balance

Hanging over the media landscape in Slovakia is the fact that full justice for the murder of Jan and Martina remains elusive. A date for the new verdict in the retrial has been floated for April 2023. Even if a guilty verdict is reached, appeals to the Supreme Court could drag the case out for many more months. The decision will be closely watched across Europe.

 

Justice for the families is naturally the prime concern. But if the alleged mastermind is ultimately convicted, it would be an extremely rare example globally in which all those suspected of involvement in the targeted killing of a journalist- from the hitman to the middleman up to the mastermind – are found guilty and put behind bars. This would set a global example and help solidify the rule of law in Slovakia.

 

Outside the courtroom of the Specialized Criminal Court, progress has undoubtedly been achieved in Slovakia. Trust in the work of police amongst the journalistic community has risen. Reforms of judicial and law enforcement bodies continue. High-level corruption revealed by journalists is being properly investigated. The current government has implemented important legislative reforms that benefit the media.

 

Yet at the same time, the toxic entanglement of powerful business and political interests is proving difficult to eradicate and can easily return. Denigration and verbal attacks against critical media by high-level politicians continue. Online harassment of journalists and Orbán-style smears against “Soros-funded” media are becoming ever more common. The sense of insecurity for journalists remains.

 

Taken together then, while there is a perception amongst journalists that the recent changes in the press freedom climate have generally been positive, opportunities for even more progressive reforms were missed and in some areas, particularly online attacks on journalists, the landscape is just as problematic as it was when Jan Kuciak was murdered. The respite experienced by journalists after the killing in terms of verbal attacks is over.

 

It is clear from the conversations we had in Bratislava with media, civil society, and reform-minded politicians that the recent progress, while significant, is also fragile and has not been fully consolidated. And with anti-democratic forces on the rise ahead of the September 2023 elections – including Fico, who was ousted by protests following the murder – there remains clear room for concern. Regardless of its political persuasion, the next government must commit to keeping the reform agenda on track. Anything less would fail to honour the legacy of Ján Kuciak.

This article by IPI, and the mission to Bratislava, were part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries. The project is co-funded by the European Commission.

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