According to reports, the veteran crime reporter was gunned down as he returned home from a shift on a daytime show on Star TV when he was ambushed by two men on a moped and shot at least six times with a silenced weapon, killing him instantly.

The murder reportedly took place at around 2.30pm on Friday as the journalist was getting out of his car near his house in Themou Anninou Street in the southern Athens suburb of Alimos.

The Attica Security Division has launched a manhunt for the suspects and a team from the Directorate of Forensic Investigations is at the scene carrying out preliminary investigations. According to reports, between 17 and 20 bullet casings were found on the road.

The MFRR is worried that the slow-motion yet obvious efforts to stack the Council of the Czech TV (ČT Council) are ultimately aimed at the erosion of the public television’s independence and politically-motivated realignment of its news and opinion programming. Our organisations are also alarmed by the apparent attempt by members of the ČT Council to find grounds to dismiss the broadcaster’s director general ahead of tightly contested parliamentary elections in October.

These concerns were renewed on 18 March, when during its selection process for the next ČT Council election, the Electoral Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, which is dominated by the ANO party led by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, again shortlisted several candidates who appear to have been chosen for their political loyalties or long-standing criticism of the broadcaster, rather than their expertise or independence.

It now appears likely that when MPs vote in April to elect four candidates to sit on the ČT Council, the ANO and its allies in the governing coalition will again use their parliamentary majority to stack the 15-member body with their preferred candidates. If so, it would mirror a similar election last year which saw individuals with clear links to political groups selected.

Martinović was convicted for violating the Criminal Code of Montenegro relating to the creation of a criminal organisation, as well as illicit production, possession and distribution of narcotics. While he did set up a meeting with defendants over the filming of smuggled weapons in France, he did so for journalistic purposes. We believe that throughout the detention and subsequent trial, his rights to a fair trial have been violated. Prior to his arrest on 22 October 2015, Martinović had already been held in custody for almost 15 months before being finally freed, provisionally.

A retrial formally began on 2 December 2019 and on 8 October 2020, the High Court of Montenegro sentenced Martinović to one year in prison for participating in drug trafficking. He was acquitted on charges for membership in a criminal organization. Yesterday, while Martinović’s appeal was rejected, an appeal brought by the state calling for these charges to be reinstated was also rejected. This offers little solace either to Jovo Martinović or other investigative journalists who can read the ongoing judicial persecution as an attempt to dissuade and chill reporting of corruption and organised crime in Montenegro. Investigative journalism is not a crime and should not be treated as such by the Montenegrin authorities.

The undersigned organisations condemn the Court of Appeals’ verdict and stand in solidarity with Jovo Martinović and all investigative journalists in Montenegro. We call on Montenegrin authorities and courts to work in line with their commitment to media freedom and European standards, as part of their commitment to the ascension process for the European Union, to ensure Martinović is not further criminalised or persecuted for his journalism.

The MFRR considers this to be yet another example of the Justice Ministry’s use of lawsuits as a tool for pressuring and financially draining the newspaper, which is one of the staunchest critics of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS).

We call directly on the Minister, who is also the Prosecutor-General of Poland, to immediately withdraw the lawsuit and refrain from abusing the civil and criminal code as part of the administration’s broader attack on independent and critical media.

We note that this lawsuit is the latest in a string of 60 civil and criminal cases brought against Gazeta Wyborcza over the last few years – many of which have been initiated by PiS politicians including party leader Jarosław Kaczyński. The scale of this coordinated legal harassment of a critical newspaper is unique within the EU.

During the attack on March 20, the well-known journalist for Vijesti Television was threatened and then assaulted by a group of five or six people carrying Montenegrin flags who were attending a patriotic rally in the north-western town of Bijelo Polje, his employer reported.

A spokeswoman from the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that the attack happened at around 8.10pm as a convoy of vehicles displaying national flags was driving through the town centre.

Police confirmed that two men had been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the attack and inflicting minor bodily injuries, according to media reports.

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined its Austrian affiliates, the Austrian Press Union (GPA) and younion – The Community Trade Union, in urging the federal government to propose an alternative plan to finance Wiener Zeitung in order to avoid job losses and further deterioration of media pluralism.

The plans announced by the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and Greens coalition are by no means new. The mandatory public advertisements of companies in Wiener Zeitung’s official gazette have been discussed and criticised for some time. Such advertisements include announcements of companies’ establishments or terminations, the publication of annual financial statements or invitations to general meetings. Now, with the implementation of the EU directive – expected to come into force in January 2022– on the “use of digital tools and procedures in company law”, the state-owned newspaper would lose this income, which constitutes three quarters of the funding for its print version.

Such substantial removal would leave the historical Wiener Zeitung without a sustainable funding model. So far, the government only alluded to plans to create a “new business model for the Wiener Zeitung with the aim of maintaining the brand”. However, details of how this massive loss of revenue should be compensated for have not been disclosed. The continuation of the print version is impossible without compensation.