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Resolution 2317 (2020)
Threats to media freedom and journalists’ security in Europe
1. Without the right to freedom of
expression, and free, independent and pluralistic media, there is
no true democracy. The Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly
are firmly committed to strengthening media freedom in all its aspects,
including the right to access to information, the protection of
sources, the protection against searches of professional workplaces
and private residences and the seizure of materials, the safeguarding
of editorial independence and of the ability to investigate, criticise
and contribute to public debate without fear of pressure or interference.
The safety of journalists and other media actors is a fundamental
component of this freedom.
2. Under the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5)
– in particular its Article 10 – member States have a positive obligation
to establish a sound legal framework for journalists and other media
actors to work safely. However, threats, harassment, legal and administrative
restrictions and undue political and economic pressure are widespread.
Worse still, in some countries, journalists who investigate affairs
involving corruption or abuse of power, or who merely voice criticism
of political leaders and governments in power, are physically attacked,
arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured or even murdered. In this respect,
the Assembly also refers to its Resolution 2293 (2019) “Daphne Caruana
Galizia’s assassination and the rule of law in Malta and beyond:
ensuring that the whole truth emerges”.
3. According to the information published by the Council of Europe
Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists
(the Platform), from April 2015 to 25 November 2019, 26 journalists
were killed, including 22 cases where there was impunity, 109 journalists
are currently in detention and 638 serious press freedom violations
were perpetrated in 39 countries. Threats to media freedom and the
safety of journalists have become so numerous, repeated and serious
that they are jeopardising not only citizens’ right to be properly
informed but also the stability and smooth functioning of our democratic
societies.
4. The Council of Europe bodies, including the Parliamentary
Assembly, must not only continue to advocate the development in
all European countries and beyond of a safe environment for journalists
and other media actors, but they must also make use of all their
leverage to prompt member States to remedy quickly and effectively
any threats to media freedom, urging and supporting the reforms
required to this end.
5. Therefore, the Assembly calls on member States to protect
more effectively the safety of journalists and media freedom. In
this connection, they must:
5.1. fully
implement Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)4 on the protection of journalism
and safety of journalists and other media actors;
5.2. carry out effective, independent and prompt investigations
into any crimes against journalists, such as murders, attacks or
ill-treatment, and bring to justice authors, instigators, perpetrators
and accomplices who are responsible under the law, ensuring that
there is no impunity for attacks against journalists;
5.3. set up national mechanisms consistent with the United
Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue
of Impunity, ensuring that such mechanisms are designed and implemented under
strong political and operational leadership, with proper inter-agency
co-ordination and in genuine partnership with civil society, notably
journalists’ associations and trade unions, and media freedom watchdog
organisations;
5.4. fight online harassment of journalists, particularly female
journalists and journalists belonging to minorities, and enhance
the protection of investigative journalists and whistle-blowers;
5.5. support the establishment of early-warning and rapid-response
mechanisms, such as hotlines or emergency contact points, to ensure
that journalists have immediate access to protection whenever they are
threatened;
5.6. pay particular attention to the rising number of attacks
on journalists and media outlets from groups of extremists and criminal
organisations, and take appropriate preventive measures when journalists’
lives and safety are exposed to real and immediate risks;
5.7. enhance the co-operation and exchange of information,
expertise and best practices with other States whenever crimes against
journalists involve cross-border or online dimensions;
5.8. back up laws protecting journalists with effective law-enforcement
apparatus and redress mechanisms for victims and their families;
5.9. avoid arrest and extradition of journalists in exile to
their countries of origin where they risk punishment and persecution.
6. The Assembly calls on member States to create an enabling
and favourable media environment and review to this end their legislation,
seeking to prevent any misuse of different laws or provisions which
may impact on media freedom – such as those on defamation, anti-terrorism,
national security, public order, hate speech, blasphemy or memory
laws – which are too often applied to intimidate and silence journalists.
In this connection, they must, in particular:
6.1. propose no criminal sanctions for media offences – especially
prison sentences, the closure of media outlets or blocking of websites
and social media platforms – except in cases where other fundamental
rights have been seriously impaired, for instance in the case of
hate speech or incitement to violence or terrorism; and ensure that
these sanctions are not applied in a discriminatory or arbitrary way
against journalists;
6.2. recognise, and ensure respect of, the right of journalists
to protect their sources, and develop an appropriate normative,
judicial and institutional framework to protect whistle-blowers
and whistle-blowing facilitators, in line with Assembly Resolution 2300 (2019) on
improving the protection of whistle-blowers all over Europe; and,
in this respect, consider that the detention and criminal prosecution
of Mr Julian Assange set a dangerous precedent for journalists,
and join the recommendation of the UN Special Rapporteur on torture
and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment who
declared, on 1 November 2019, that Mr Assange’s extradition to the
United States must be barred and that he must be promptly released;
6.3. facilitate journalists’ work in specific difficult contexts,
such as in conflict zones or in public rallies;
6.4. firmly condemn police violence against journalists and
establish deterrent sanctions in this respect;
6.5. develop specific training programmes for law-enforcement
bodies and officials who are responsible for fulfilling State obligations
concerning the protection of journalists;
6.6. avoid any misuse of administrative measures, such as registration
or accreditation, and of tax schemes to harass journalists or apply
pressure on them;
6.7. develop constructive, non-discriminatory mechanisms of
dialogue with media and journalists’ standing or ad hoc committees, bringing together
politicians, judges, public prosecutors, police officers, journalists
and editors, to discuss problems concerning journalists’ security,
and look for solutions in a collaborative framework, also paying
specific attention to the need to ensure effective protection for investigative
journalists, as well as to the higher vulnerability of women journalists
and the particular vulnerability of freelance journalists.
7. The Assembly condemns the rise of aggressive behaviour and
violent verbal attacks by political figures and representatives
of the authorities against journalists and calls on all political
leaders to combat this phenomenon.
8. The Assembly notes with concern that public service media
have been under increasing pressure in most parts of Europe, suffering
from funding cuts and new laws or regulations which limit their
independence or reduce their remits. The Assembly reaffirms and
commends the crucial role that public service media play in a democratic
society and calls again on member States to ensure their adequate
and sustainable funding, editorial independence and institutional
autonomy.
9. While the above-mentioned problems, or at least some of them,
are observed in various proportions in most countries, the Assembly
notes that, concerning media freedom and the safety of journalists,
the situation in some member States is particularly worrying. In
this context, the Assembly specifically calls on:
9.1. Azerbaijan to radically modify
the present hostile environment which seriously curtails media freedom
and, in particular to:
9.1.1. ban the abuse of criminal
legislation to silence independent journalists, who are today systematically
threatened with unfounded charges, trumped-up evidence and unjustified imprisonment;
9.1.2. review urgently all cases of imprisoned journalists and
media professionals, and free all those who are detained without
any serious and substantiated evidence of criminal activities;
9.1.3. refrain from the adoption of restrictive administrative
measures, such as travel bans on journalists, which limit their
freedom to properly inform the public;
9.1.4. end legal harassment of independent news agencies, for
example through false accusations of tax evasion or under-declaring
profits;
9.1.5. stop systematically blocking access to independent news
websites;
9.1.6. stop any administrative and political pressure against
the only independent news agency, Turan, and against the Institute
for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS);
9.2. Hungary to immediately address the grave problem of media
pluralism: the politically and economically biased licensing media
conglomerate which concentrates 78% of the Hungarian media closely
associated with the ruling party is totally incompatible with freedom
of expression and information;
9.3. Malta to:
9.3.1. urgently end the prevailing climate
of impunity and implement Assembly Resolution 2293 (2019). In this
connection, the Assembly welcomes the recent announcement of revised terms
of reference and composition of a public independent inquiry into
the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, following the concerns set
out in the Declaration of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and
Human Rights adopted on 30 September 2019;
9.3.2. as recommended by the Council of Europe’s Commissioner
for Human Rights, repeal any laws allowing the posthumous pursuit
of defamation cases, targeting journalists, against their heirs.
It is unacceptable that over 30 posthumous civil defamation proceedings
against Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family are still under way;
9.4. the Russian Federation – which holds the dubious record
for the number of alerts on serious attacks against, and harassment
and intimidation of, journalists – to immediately:
9.4.1. address
the problem of violence against journalists, including murders,
physical attacks and threats, arrests, imprisonment and online harassment;
take remedial action to impede such crimes and put an end to the
climate of impunity that encourages further attacks; ensure that those
who carried out or ordered the crimes are brought to justice;
9.4.2. prevent police violence against journalists, as happened
during the demonstrations in Moscow in July and August 2019; apply
deterrent sanctions against policemen who are responsible for such
unacceptable misuse of power;
9.4.3. stop intimidation of journalists by way of arrests and
imprisonment under forged accusations of drug dealing or other crimes,
in order to prevent journalistic investigations of corruption and
misuse of power, as in the case of the journalist Ivan Golunov;
9.4.4. cease abusing anti-terrorism laws to apply censorship
to the media, as in the case of the journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva,
who was charged with “publicly justifying terrorism” and could face
up to seven years in prison for expressing on the radio her opinion
about a teenage suicide;
9.4.5. review the terms of reference of the Russian federal media
regulator, Roskomnadzor, to limit its excessive power in the monitoring
and censorship of the media, including online media; the blocking
of independent media outlets without any warning or explanation,
as recently happened to the Fergana news website, is an action amounting
to censorship that is incompatible with the freedom of the media;
9.4.6. modify the recent legislation on false news and disrespect
for the State, the authorities and society, and bring it into line
with Council of Europe standards; general prohibitions on the dissemination
of information based on vague and ambiguous ideas, including “false
news” or “non-objective information”, are incompatible with the
provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and must be
abolished; they have a chilling effect of self-censorship on journalists and
other media professionals and allow the government to silence any
criticism against the ruling power, putting journalists and bloggers
who oppose it in jail, and to determine the make-up of the media
landscape by forcing media outlets to remove content identified
by the authorities as “socially dangerous” or “disrespectful” or
having their websites blocked;
9.4.7. stop discriminating against the main organisations defending
the media by declaring them to be “foreign agents”; repeal the new
bill adopted by the State Duma which extends the status of “foreign
agents” to freelance journalists and bloggers receiving grants,
salaries or payment for specific pieces of work from any foreign
source: marking with the “foreign agent” label the information published
by independent journalists and bloggers will have a chilling effect on
freedom of expression and of the media;
9.5. Turkey – the country which has the highest number of imprisoned
journalists of all the Council of Europe member States – to immediately:
9.5.1. stop abusing the criminal code and anti-terrorism laws
to silence media outlets and journalists: the latter are placed
in arbitrary pre-trial arrest and detention and are held for months, sometimes
for years, before their cases come to court; the European Court
of Human Rights has consistently condemned such detentions as a
real and effective constraint on freedom of expression that leads
to self-censorship;
9.5.2. in line with Assembly Resolution 2121 (2016) on the functioning
of democratic institutions in Turkey, repeal Article 299 (Insulting
the President of the Republic), repeal or amend Article 301 (Degrading
the Turkish Nation, the State of the Turkish Republic, the organs
and institutions of the State) and ensure a strict interpretation
of Article 216 (Incitement to violence, armed resistance or uprising)
and Article 314 (Membership of an armed organisation) of its criminal
code which, according to the Venice Commission, contains excessive
sanctions and is too widely applied against freedom of expression
and information;
9.5.3. ensure that the over 150 media outlets which were closed,
and the approximately 10 000 media employees who were dismissed,
after the failed coup in 2016 have access to effective domestic
remedies and, if the case arises, obtain adequate compensation;
9.5.4. eliminate from the recently adopted legislation all provisions
retained from the abolished emergency decrees that make it possible
to apply radical measures against the media;
9.5.5. ensure that the newly introduced regulation, empowering
the Radio and Television Supreme Council to supervise internet media
strictly, abides by the case law of the European Court of Human
Rights;
9.5.6. continue the reforms with regard to the revision of the
Internet Act in order to avoid unnecessary and unjustified blocking
of access to internet resources on the grounds of “national security”;
9.5.7. in the framework of the announced Judicial Reform Strategy,
focus on the protection of journalists’ safety and ensure, in that
context, that meaningful steps are taken to expand freedom of expression
and of the media and guarantee judicial independence, in line with
Council of Europe standards.
10. The Assembly welcomes the constructive attitude that a number
of member States have shown so far with regard to the Platform and
the alerts published therein. As examples, France and Ukraine have
set up response mechanisms to co-ordinate adequate follow-up to
the alerts, in an effort to solve the problems. In the Netherlands,
the public prosecution, the police authorities and media outlets
concluded an agreement to adopt preventive measures and co-ordinate
responses to instances of violence. Encouraging progress should
be acknowledged with regard to North Macedonia, where pressure on
and prosecutions against journalists have been significantly reduced.
11. With the hope that all member States will recognise the added
value that the Platform represents and the importance of the contribution
that its partners offer to the Council of Europe, the Assembly calls
on member States to:
11.1. support
unreservedly and co-operate with the Platform, and contribute financially
to its operation;
11.2. establish appropriate response mechanisms and provide
substantive responses to the alerts posted on the Platform, looking
for prompt remedial actions and adopting targeted measures to avoid the
repetition of such cases;
11.3. consider how other member States are enhancing their collaboration
with the partners of the Platform, seeking to follow positive examples
and good practices;
11.4. support the development of other similar transnational
technical platforms on which media professionals would be able to
signal any threats to their security.
12. Finally, the Assembly calls on national parliaments to ensure
that governments act in full respect of the Council of Europe standards
concerning the right to freedom of expression, including media freedom
and the safety of journalists. National parliaments must be the
guardians of this right and ensure full engagement of the State
apparatus at all levels: political, legislative, judicial, law enforcement
and educational. In this connection, national parliaments should
take more account of the Council of Europe’s work and in particular
bring the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers and the
Assembly’s reports and resolutions to the attention of their relevant
committees, and build on these texts when drafting legislation that
is relevant for media freedom and the safety of journalists.