Litigation and Accountability for Pegasus Surveillance against Journalists?

Discussions the current litigation and policy initiatives to stop Pegasus and other similar spyware from being used against journalists and public interest actors.



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Strengthening democracy and media freedom and pluralism in Europe.

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  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...
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Threats, following public appearances in the media.

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 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...
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Journalists and media actors face several different types of attacks.

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