25/01/2024 Session
PACE today emphasised the pressing need “to enforce the high standards on media freedom 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 recalled that member states “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, the parliamentarians noted, pointing out that since the creation in 2015 of the Council of Europe Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists, the number of alerts posted had more than doubled in eight years, rising from 108 in 2015 to 289 in 2022.
By adopting a resolution based on the report by Mogens Jensen (Denmark, SOC), PACE expressed its deep concern at the multiple attacks to media freedom and the too many cases of impunity, especially in relation to murders of journalists, some of which remain unresolved for 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”.
The adopted text also mentions the high level of harassment targeting journalists in Azerbaijan, the expanding phenomenon of media capture in Hungary, Poland and Serbia, and the alarming number of journalists detained in Türkiye.
In this context, PACE called on member states to develop holistic national strategies and coherent action plans on the protection of journalism and safety of journalists; review legislation which can be abused or misused to unduly restrict media freedom; improve the legislative and regulatory framework against any political interference and undue concentration of media ownership; and support genuine public service media, securing their viability and editorial independence.
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. “The Campaign is a unique opportunity to raise awareness amongst parliamentarians and strengthen the role of parliaments in upholding media freedom,” they concluded.