EVENT – Call to action: Whistleblower protection across the EU - Article

In 2019 the European Union adopted a ground-breaking Directive to ensure comprehensive and coherent protection of whistleblowers across Europe. Join us to learn about why the transposition of this EU Directive matters to you! 

MFRR Monitoring Report II - Reports

From July to October 2020, attacks on media freedom in Europe took many forms, as the Media Freedom Rapid Response’s second monitoring report documents. Besides anti-lockdown demonstrations and online harassment, the impact of legal actions (SLAPPs) contributed to a hostile climate for journalists and media workers. Find all the details in the second MFRR-report

The Backstory Media Freedom Podcast - Article

A podcast series from WAN-IFRA, World Association of News Publishers, exploring media freedom issues from across the globe. We look at challenging issues that journalists and media organisations are faced with, exploring how they tackle – and surmount – the obstacles to continue reporting the news

IPI Podcast: Anti-press sentiment in The Netherlands - Article

Second episode of ‘The Press Freedom Files’ looks into case of Dutch journalist Clarice Gagard and motives behind the growing attacks against the media

Democracy Declining: Erosion of Media Freedom in Poland - Reports

Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) press freedom mission to Poland (November-December 2020) was lead by IPI. Here the Mission Report

Press freedom in Spain in 2020: Coronavirus and five years of the ‘gag laws’ - Article

Watchdog PDLI (Plataforma en Defensa de la Libertad de Información) highlights key developments in press freedom last year

Shelter City - Support Centres

Shelter City is a nationwide initiative of Justice and Peace Netherlands to protect human rights defenders, in cooperation with a growing number of Dutch cities and local organizations.

Human rights defenders defend the rights of themselves and of others. Through their work they play an important role in the promotion of democratic values, political freedoms, and civil rights. This is a challenging and dangerous fight: they are often silenced, threatened, arrested, tortured and sometimes they disappear.

Justice and Peace established Shelter City in 2012 on the request of their network of international human rights defenders. After the first Shelter City in The Hague, Middelburg joined in 2014, followed by Nijmegen, Maastricht, Utrecht, and Amsterdam in 2015, Tilburg and Groningen in 2016 and Zwolle and Haarlem in 2017. In 2018 Deventer also joined the Shelter City network. Rotterdam followed in 2020. Tbilisi & Batumi (Georgia), Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), Cotonou (Benin) and San José (Costa Rica) have joined the network as International Shelter City Hubs. The expectation is that other cities (in or outside the Netherlands) will join in the future as well. The growing number of applications from Human Rights Defenders under threat shows that new Shelter Cities are strongly needed.

In every Shelter City the municipality, local organizations, universities, and Justice and Peace provide the shelter and take care of the program for the human rights defender. Together with the human rights defenders they organize meetings and workshops that contribute to the raising of awareness about human rights issues among the inhabitants of the Shelter Cities.

Shelter City is affiliated with the EU Human Rights Defenders Relocation Platform

Regardless of Frontiers. Global Freedom of Expression in a Troubled World - Books

A collection of essays where the authors also consider ongoing and new challenges to global norms on freedom of expression and information, from conflicts over hate speech and the rise of populism to authoritarian governments, as well as the profound disruption introduced by the internet

Netherlands: Journalists’ safety increasingly under attack - Article

The European Federation of Journalists is concerned by the situation and calls on the authorities to do the utmost to protect journalists and investigate all attacks

Serbia: the Coalition for Women Journalists interviews Gordana Bjeletić who received death threats - Article

Gordana Bjeletić and her colleagues were targeted with death threats, CFWIJ spoke to her after filing a complaint about the brutal attacks to the police