World Press Freedom Day

  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...

  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...