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

UK: harassment directed at Nadine White by government members - Article

The Media Freedom Rapid Response condemns the harassment directed at NadineWhite and calls on MPs and Ministers to stop targeting journalists doing their job

Mapping Media Freedom by MFRR - Monitoring tool

The Media Freedom Rapid Response runs and updates the platform monitoring violations of media freedom all over Europe, in EU member states and Candidate Countries

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

Mapping Fake News and Disinformation in the Western Balkans and Identifying Ways to Effectively Counter Them - Reports

A study requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, concluding that the European Union should focus on the role that it can play in bolstering the quality of democracy and governance in the Western Balkans, as the most powerful potential bulwark against disinformation

France: one defamation action dropped, but the threat remains - Article

The MFRR welcomes the dropping of the defamation action against Inès Léraud but vexatious legal threats continue to threaten media freedom across Europe

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

CINS Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia - Stakeholders

Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia – CINS (Centar za istraživačko novinarstvo Srbije – CINS) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to investigative journalism according to the internationally recognized standards, including the use of new tools and techniques.

The goal is to continuously offer important facts about Serbian society that were hidden or unknown. CINS hopes to help citizens reach informed decisions in this manner.

Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia was founded by the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia with the aim to show that independent journalism in line with the highest professional standards is possible in Serbia.

CINS is funded by donations in order to avoid the influence of funding sources originating from business and politics.

CINS supports the inclusion of vulnerable groups and the equality of all Serbian citizens, regardless of their gender, race, national, religious or political affiliation and other diversities. CINS also supports the right of citizens to transparency of the work of public bodies and the right to be informed about all the facts important for our society.

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