World Press Freedom Day

 Media freedom in Europe continued to face major challenges in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this twelvemonth reporting period, the MapMF platform documented 166 different media freedom violations linked in some way to COVID-19. These involved attacks on 252 different persons or entities in 19 countries. Many of these alerts involved phys‐ ical and online attacks on journalists reporting on anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protests across Europe. Sixteen cases were recorded which involved serious attacks on journalists or media workers who then required medical treatment. Overall, more than a quarter of all alerts (26.5%) recorded during 2021 were re‐lated to the pandemic, underscoring the persistent threats that the pandemic faces to independent journalism. The re‐ spective COVID-19 related alerts can be viewed here. These attacks on the free press came in many forms. Nearly one in three incidents (31.9% and 53 alerts) involved physical at‐ tacks, including 16 incidents ...

  Journalists and media actors sometimes even fac e several types of attacks at the same time, such as a verbal and a physical attack performed within the same incident by the same aggressor. In this section we show how many alerts involved a certain type of attack.   The types of attacks are grouped into 5 main types with detailed information provided below:        Physical: In more than 1 out of 5 incidents (21.1%, 132 alerts) media actors were physically attacked. In 49 incidents (7.8%) media actors were injured. Three journalists were killed: the investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries in the Netherlands, the television reporter and veteran crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz in Greece, and the local radio presenter Hazım Özsu in Turkey.  Verbal: In more than 4 out of 10 incidents (41.1%, 257 alerts), media actors were verbally abused. This includes intimidation/threatening (25.2%, 158 alerts), insult/ab‐ use (78 alerts), discrediting (32), hara...

  While there were hundreds of alerts across Europe in 2021, there were also positive developments that were welcomed by media freedom actors . In the beginning of the year, the European Commission announced the establishment of an Expert group against SLAPPs with a specific mission to advise the Commission on matters related to fighting SLAPPs or supporting the journalists and media outlets that were targeted by them. ECPMF's legal advisor Flutura Kusari is also a part of this group and the EC is expected to propose legislative and non-legislative measures to counter SLAPPs.  The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the details of a new Media Freedom Act during her annual State of the Union speech on 15 September. In that same month, the Commission adopted a Recommendation to Member States to improve the safety of journalists, both on-line and offline . It called for the creation of independent national services to support journalists i...

  In 2021, the Fidesz government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban continued its steady erosion of media pluralism. As part of global revelations, an investigative reporting project meanwhile unearthed the surveillance of multiple Hungarian journalists using the Pegasus spyware developed by Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, leading to fresh concerns about the illegal surveillance of journalists and their sources . Hungary was the only country in the EU in which the state intelligence agencies were suspected of tar‐ geting their own nation’s journalists. The 12 alerts recorded on the MapMF plat‐ form, and 47 attacked persons or entities related to media , do not reflect the true scale of the challenges facing media freedom in Hungary, which continued to be among the lowest of the EU member states. Unlike other EU states, however, the state/government was the source of 50% of documeted alerts, indicating the continued pressure by the Fidesz party on independent media.  On 18 July...

  In Italy a major concern for media freedom in 2021 was the safety of journalists reporting from anti-vaccine and anti-green pass protests. MapMF recorded 45 alerts, with 72 attacked persons or entities related to media. Hostility against the press including multiple serious physical attacks were documented by MapMF, with some journalists badly injured. Intimidation and harassment of journalists by anti-vaccine groups, both online and offline, was widespread, worsening an already dangerous climate for journalist’s safety. Meanwhile, 26 Mapping Media Freedom | Monitoring Report – 2021 Mapping Media Freedom | Monitoring Report – 2021; 27 vexatious lawsuits and SLAPPs targeting media outlets and threats against individual journalists from organised crime groups remain major concerns. Attacks and threats against journalists covering COVID-19-related protests were documented across the country, from Bo‐ logna and Florence to Rome. Overall, 36% of all alerts in Italy in 2021 were recor...

  In 2021, MapMF documented 12 alerts for Montenegro with 16 attacked persons or entities related to the media. Following a trend across Europe, a vast majority of these attacks (11) were perpetrated by private individuals. Male and female professionals were equally affected. Political as well as nationalist polarisa‐ tion are blatant in Montenegro through a number of alerts. In the case of a reporting team from the public broadcaster Radio-television (RTV), a right-wing nationalist group intimidated and insulted the journalists near the coastal town of Budva. For several weeks, the nationalist group had organised numerous protests over changes to the Law on Citizenship, which would grant Montenegrin citizenship to Russian and Serbian citizens living in the country. The attacked journalists had been caught up in one of their blockades. During another political event in the city of Niksic, on the night of local elections, Vijesti journalist Jelena Jovanović was attacked by an agg...

  Media freedom in Albania suffered in 2021 due to concerns over the further solidification of government control over the flow of information. 14 alerts were recorded with 24 individuals or media entities affected. The independence of the system for media regulation also came under threat, while the establishment of a new government agency which would centralise control over public relations and government information raised further worries about media’s access to information . The MapMF documented a few cases of heavy-handed police action in 2021. In July, journalist Ergys Gjencaj from televi‐ sion channel News 24 was tackled to the ground and detained for an hour after he tried to film an anti-drug operation by police near the Military Academy in Tirana. The police also roughly pushed Gjencaj’s colleague Klodiana Lala and obstructed both from filming. In a serious case in November, reporter Anila Hoxha from Top Channel and her colleague Endrit Aga of A2CNN TV had their lives ...

 In France, MapMF recorded 57 alerts in 2021, involving a total of 87 attacked persons or entities related to media. The situation has worsened against the backdrop of the start of the presidential campaign, despite the calming down of debates and protests over the Global Security Bill and National Policing Plan, which caused a high number of incidents in 2020 (see previous reports ). With 27 alerts, harassment and psychological abuse towards journalists and media workers were the most frequent violations in 2021.  Fourteen physical assaults (24.6% were recorded on Mapping Media Freedom, seven of which resulted in injuries. One of the most violent and shocking physical attacks happened in February 2021 Christian Lantenois , photographer for the regional daily L’Union, was severely injured by a group of individuals who used his camera as a weapon as he was taking photos. The main suspect, a 21-year-old man, is being prosecuted for "attempted murder" and "failure to assis...

  Spain follows a trend monitored in several other European countries regarding the safety of journalists during demonstrations, which is becoming an increasingly risky place for media professionals on assignment. With six alerts, they are the main context for physical assaults, threat to professional equipment, and insults. Physical assaults included a protester punching a journalist in the face, journalists hit with batons by riot police, and shot at  point blank range with non-lethal detonating ammunition. During a protest, journalists’ equipment was damaged, with black paint sprayed on one of the camera lenses to prevent them from continuing to record. In February, the newsroom and office building of El Periodico de Catalunya was damaged by protesters who smashed the windows and painted the doors, while shouting anti-media slogans. Finally, Sonia Lopez , Marta Madonado , and a reporting crew for La Sexta TV were insulted and harassed while covering anti-mask and anti...

  Despite a strong political commitment to media freedom at the highest level, the Netherlands face a number of challenges with regard to the safety of journalists. 2021 was marked by the shooting of in‐ vestigative journalist Peter R de Vries on 6 July in the street in Amsterdam. His death, nine days after being shot, has shaken the country. While the case is still under investigation in order to find out the exact circumstances and motives behind the attack, and the alleged relation to his advisory role in the Marengo trial, the issue of the safety of journalists in the Netherlands was widely discussed again.  A few days later, the RTL office, which de Vries had last visited on the day of the shooting, was forced to cancel its programmes after“serious threats” on its editorial office. In August, Groningen blog Sikkom editor-inchief Willem Groeneveld ’s house was targeted by molotov cocktails. He managed to extinguish the fire in the house in time. Physical assaults (12...

  Media freedom in Greece was thrust into the international spotlight in April 2021 when well-known Greek crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz was gunned down out‐ side his house in Athens. He had returned home from a shift on a daytime show on Star TV when he was ambushed by two men on a moped and shot at least six times with a silenced weapon, killing him instantly. The assassination, the first of a journalist in Greece since 2010, shocked the country’s journalistic community and was met with pledges by the Prime Minis‐ ter to bring those responsible to justice. The killing also led to greater scrutiny of the suffocating climate for independent journalism in a fragmented landscape marked by a politically polarised press. Even before the assassination, 2021 began with a worrying start for Greece’s journalistic community. In January, a new plan for policing protests was launched by the Ministry of Civil Protection, raising concerns it could seriously limit the ability of journalists ...

  2021 was a pivotal year for media freedom in Poland , as the government continued its multi-pronged efforts to weaken critical and independent media. The MapMF re‐corded 24 violations of media freedom , including 42 attacked persons or entities related to the media. The major flashpoint was the effort by the Law and Justice (PiS) party to pass a controversial media ownership law that would have forced the sale of U.S owned TVN, the country’s largest broadcaster and a long critic of the ruling party. The bill was eventually vetoed by President Duda following inter‐ national condemnation and high-level U.S pressure, puncturing PiS’ legislative plans. However, new SLAPP lawsuits and seri‐ ous criminal sanctions and a media black‐ out caused by a government-imposed state of emergency at the Belarusian bor‐ der posed serious challenges.  Systematic legal harassment of independent media in Poland continued in 2021, as PiS officials and their allies continued efforts to bury criti...

  Media freedom in Slovenia continued to decline in 2021 under pressure from the government of Prime Minister Janez Janša. The country saw the seventh highest number of alerts on the MapMF platform with 29 alerts and 41 attacked persons or entities related to media, leading the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) to launch an online fact-finding mission in May to assess the situation. Increasing pressure on independent journalism during this time centred on the financial suffocation of the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) and increasing political in‐ terference at the public broadcaster. Con‐ cerningly, many of these violations were recorded while Slovenia held the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.  At the beginning of the year, UKOM, the Government Communications Directorate, suspended the financing of the STA for the second time in three months, in what media rights groups called an attempt to destabilise the agency through financial blackmail. The PM and leading...

  Serbia is the candidate country with the second highest number of alerts , following Turkey. In total, 35 attacks affecting 55 persons or entities related to media were registered in the reporting period. As evidenced by the MFRR fact-finding mission organised in January and February 2021, media professionals continue to operate in a highly polarised environment. The data confirms the findings of the mission report , published in April 2021. Verbal attacks, intimidation, online harassment, and legal threats are the main issues affecting journalists in the country.  The country's political and ethnic polarisation is reflected in attacks against journalists who critically report on the ruling Serbian Progessive Party (SNS or President Vucic’s family .arious cases show that radical nationalism endangers the safety of journalist s. Pro-government media were the source of – or incited – attacks against journalists in five cases, for instance by discrediting critical media out...