04/12/2023 Culture, Science, Education and Media
Since the Council of Europe Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists was established in 2015, the number of alerts posted therein per year has risen constantly, and it has more than doubled from 108 in 2015 to 289 in 2022, the PACE Culture Committee underlined today. Member states of the Council of Europe, the committee recalled, “have a positive obligation to establish a sound legal framework for media pluralism and for journalists and other media actors to work safely; however, we are far from having reached this result”.
Adopting a draft resolution based on a report by Mogens Jensen (Denmark, SOC), the committee said: “There is a pressing need to enforce the high media freedom standards which the Council of Europe has established, to ensure effective protection of journalists and to uphold in all member States a friendly and safe environment for media independence and pluralism.”
It expressed its strong concern over multiple attacks on media freedom, and the too many cases of impunity for those responsible for them, especially in relation to murders of journalists, some of which are unresolved after more than a decade. It insisted on the duty of state authorities to “investigate each and every crime against journalists, and bring to justice the instigators, perpetrators and accomplices”.
Commending the launch, on 5 October 2023 in Riga, of the Council of Europe campaign for the safety of journalists, the parliamentarians called on member states to fully endorse and take an active part in this campaign. Within this framework, they said, member states should develop holistic national strategies and coherent action plans for the protection and safety of journalists; review legislation which can be abused or misused to unduly restrict media freedom; analyse the political, legal and economic conditions which lead to media capture; and take adequate measures to counter this phenomenon and safeguard independent media.
The campaign, they concluded, “will be a unique opportunity to raise awareness amongst parliamentarians and strengthen the role of parliaments in upholding media freedom”.