Focus on Media Freedom

The AEJ is an official Observer in the Council of Europe's Media Steering Committee.

The AEJ’s Media Freedom Representative, William Horsley, with other media and NGO organisations, has called on Member States to fulfil their 2009 pledge to ensure that national anti-terrorism laws are not misused to block legitimate freedom of expression.

The AEJ welcomes the focus on media freedom in the Decision by Ministers’ Deputies, but questions the failure to adopt more far-reaching measures to counter attacks on journalists’ lives and work.

» Full report on the AEJ-EP Seminar on Media Freedom in the EU
» AEJ Media Freedom Representative: Proposals for EU Action
» Council of Europe 2012 Decision on Media Freedom
» AEJ finds media freedom crumbling across eastern Europe

Read more:
» AEJ MF Project
» AEJ MF Representative
» AEJ MF Surveys and Reports
» AEJ & the Council of Europe
» World Press Freedom Day

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AEJ News

Friday, December 13, 2019

AEJ Statement on the draft media law proposed by the Albanian government

The Association of European Journalists’ Albanian section expresses its urgent concern that the proposed new law on online media registration is a “direct attack” on the freedom of online media. We join the statements of 15 other associations and that of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media that this draft has serious defects that directly affect the freedom of online media. The so called anti-fake news draft...

Monday, December 9, 2019

AEJ ’Appel de Paris’ criticises EU inaction to protect journalists’ safety and media freedom

A public appeal by the AEJ and four other journalists’ and media freedom organisations was made at the association’s annual Congress, meeting at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris on Friday, The ’Appel de Paris’ strongly criticised the lack until now of effective actions by the EU to protect journalists’ safety and media freedom especially at times of elections, and called on the relevant European institutions to take a series of urgent steps to remedy the ongoing assault against the essential work of the media that is threatened by over 640 recorded press freedom alerts registered on the Council of Europe’s Platform for journalists’ safety since 2015. The co-authors of the ’Appel’ -- the AEJ, EFJ, RSF and ECPMF,-- are all partners to the Platform, which was started less than five years ago. The South East Europe Media Organisation, SEEMO, also put its name to the ’Appel de Paris’...

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Polish Public Broadcasting in the Eye of the Storm

Krzysztof Bobinski of AEJ Poland and the Society of Journalists contributed this analysis of the risks to Polish democracy and to free and fair election processes arising from the ’capture’ of Polish Public Broadcasting by the ruling Law and Justice party to the AEJ’s conference on media freedom held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 6 December... Contribution to AEJ media freedom conference Panel on ‘Public audiovisual media facing new threats’ in Paris, December 6 2019 By Krzysztof Bobinski, AEJ Poland, Society of Journalists

Friday, November 1, 2019

AEJ marks International Day against Impunity with joint call for justice to be done without delay

To mark International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, the AEJ and ten other partner organisations of the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists are calling on European governments to take urgent action to ensure that crimes against journalists are no longer carried out with impunity; and that all the perpetrators are made to face effective justice. Too little has been done since last February when, in the 2019 Annual Report of the Platform partners, they expressed public alarm that “a climate of impunity has started to take hold in parts of Europe”...

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Peter Handke, Austrian writer, was awarded the Nobel prize for literature

The award of this year’s nobel prize for literature to Peter Handke caused a lot of criticism around the world. He wrote six books about the war in former Yugoslavia which include a lot of praise for Serbian war-criminals. He also attacked journalists as "war dogs" and recently attacked journalism as such.