1,117 media freedom alerts in the past year –…

19. March 202419. March 2024

1,117 media freedom alerts in the past year – MFRR Monitoring Report 2023

The partners from the MFRR consortium today publish the latest edition of its Monitoring Report which documents press freedom violations from January to December 2023.

The latest Monitoring Report – produced by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), the International Press Institute (IPI), and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) as part of the MFRR – gathers and analyses all media freedom violations recorded on Mapping Media Freedom throughout the year 2023.

War in Ukraine

The 2023 report opens with a thematic chapter on the ongoing war in Ukraine and its repercussions for press freedom. The MFRR recorded a total of 149 alerts throughout 2023 affecting 220 different media entities.

DDoS Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks became prominent in Hungary and other countries in Europe. Unfortunately, the number of such cases doubled compared to the previous year, with 61 alerts targeting 112 persons or entities related to the media.

Incidents by public authorities/politicians

A third thematic chapter was dedicated to populist attacks on media freedom in Europe, ranging from verbal harassment and censorship, to legal attacks and ‘foreign agent’ laws.

Abusive lawsuits and SLAPPs

A final thematic chapter focuses on civil and criminal lawsuits against journalists and media outlets. In 2023, 20 legal cases containing hallmarks of SLAPPs were recorded by MFRR partners.

The report also includes country reports offering a summary of the most relevant threats in the following EU countries: France, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Finland, and Slovakia; and in the following candidate countries: Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey.

Key Figures

1,117 media freedom violations were recorded in EU Member States and candidate countries, involving 1,620 individuals or media outlets.
602 alerts were recorded in the EU, while 515 were registered in candidate countries.
In the EU, the main source of attacks remained private individuals (almost 33% of cases), worryingly followed by public officials (17.9%) and police and state security (12.6%).
3 media workers were murdered – two in Ukraine and one in Albania.
149 media freedom violations were recorded in Ukraine, a slight increase on last year’s 147 alerts. The MFRR started monitoring Ukraine immediately after the full-scale invasion in 2022.
20.6% of all incidents in the EU involved some kind of physical attack. A considerable number of incidents included cases involving attacks to property (17.4%) and censorship (15.9%).
Within Member States of the EU, verbal attacks (35.9%) represented the largest amount of alerts, followed by legal incidents (24.9%) and physical attacks, accounting for 20.6% of the total incidents. In EU candidate countries, legal incidents were at the forefront of alerts (29.7%), followed by verbal attacks such as harassment second with 27.2%.

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This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries.

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Monitoring Report – 575 media freedom violations in the…

25. October 2023

MFRR Monitoring Report – 575 media freedom violations in the first half of 2023

Today the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) publishes the latest edition of the consortium’s monitoring report, compiling and analysing all media freedom violations recorded on Mapping Media Freedom between January and June 2023 in all EU Member States and candidate countries.

In the six month period, the MFRR partners recorded 575 media freedom violations in European Union Member States and candidate countries, involving 844 individuals or media outlets. 307 of those took place in EU Member States, while 268 occurred in candidate countries.

In the EU the most common type of attacks were verbal attacks (35.8%) such as insults and discrediting of journalists, to which this report dedicates one of its thematic chapters. Legal attacks were the second most prominent category (24.8%), followed by physical attacks (21.2%), attacks on property (16.9%), and censorship (14.3%).

The current monitoring report offers an overview of the media freedom situation across the EU and candidate countries in the first half of 2023 and it starts with a thematic chapter on the crackdown on independent media in Turkey amidst devastating earthquakes and national elections that took place at the beginning of the year, followed by a chapter on the war in Ukraine and its repercussions on media freedom.

The report also covers the rise in attacks on journalists and media workers by police officers and security forces and, as mentioned earlier, the rise in the discrediting of journalists and reputational attacks against them to hinder their work.

The report is divided into the following chapters: an overview offering data and graphics about the press freedom situation in the EU and in candidate countries in 2023, four thematic sections with quantitative and qualitative analysis regarding the aforementioned topics, and country reports offering a summary of the most relevant threats in the following EU countries: Italy, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, and France; and in the following candidate countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

You can download the report in full using the button below.

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This report was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries.

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MFRR Monitoring Report 2022 – 813 media freedom violations…

7. February 20237. February 2023

MFRR Monitoring Report 2022

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) has published the latest edition of its annual Monitoring Report, outlining the state of press freedom throughout Europe in 2022. This year, the MFRR recorded 813 media freedom violations in EU Member States and candidate countries.

The Monitoring Report – produced by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), and the International Press Institute (IPI) as part of the MFRR – gathers and analyses all media freedom violations recorded on Mapping Media Freedom throughout the year 2022.

The report is divided into the following chapters: an overview offering data and graphics about the press freedom situation in the EU and candidate countries in 2022, four thematic sections with quantitative and qualitative analysis regarding the aforementioned topics, and country reports offering a summary of the most relevant threats in the following EU countries: Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden; and in the following candidate countries: Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey.

You can download the report in full using the button below or keep reading for an overview of the 2022 edition.

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Throughout 2022, 813 media freedom violations were recorded in EU Member States and candidate countries, involving 1,339 individuals or media outlets. This marks an increase from 654 in 2021, although it must be noted that Ukraine and Moldova were not included in the previous year’s analysis.

EU Member States

In the EU Member States, verbal attacks were the main type of incident (involving 42.4% of all alerts) – such as intimidation and threats (24.6%) or insults (13.3%) – followed by legal attacks (27.2%). After legal incidents, physical attacks were the third most common type of attack against journalists and media workers in the EU (20.5%), followed by attacks to property (15.7%), and censorship incidents, which rose from 8.6% of the total attacks in 2021 to 14.5% in 2022.

Monitoring Report types of attacks EU MS

Private individuals remained the main perpetrators of attacks against journalists in the EU (37.8% of cases), representing a decrease from 50% of cases in 2021. Government and public officials were the second most common source of attacks (17.1%), followed by police and state security (11.3%).

In terms of contexts in which the violations occurred, attacks taking place online rose from 14.1% in 2021 to 20.7% in 2022. Attacks at protests (the most frequent context in 2021) fell from 39.8% to 21% of the total.

EU Candidate Countries

The Monitoring Report also covers the media freedom situation in candidate countries, where the MFRR registered the most severe violations of media freedom: 10 deaths of journalists. Nine of them took place in Ukraine and affected media workers covering the war, and another one in Turkey, where Güngör Arslan, managing editor of the Turkish newspaper Ses Kocaeli was murdered.

Out of the 813 alerts recorded in 2022, 398 took place in candidate countries. Legal attacks were the most common type, making up 38.3% of the total, followed by verbal attacks (35.5%), physical (19.8%), censorship (11.3%), and damage to property (8.9%).

Monitoring report - types of attacks in candidate courts

Private individuals were the most frequent perpetrator of media freedom violations in candidate countries (37.8%), followed by public officials (17.1%), and police or state security (11.3%).

Reflecting the high number of legal violations, 25% of attacks in candidate countries took place at court. This is followed by attacks occurring online (18.5%), at demonstrations (16.5%), and in public or on the street (11.7%).

Click the button below to download the full 2022 Monitoring Report, including the thematic analyses and country-specific breakdowns.

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MFRR Monitoring Report: 311 European media freedom violations recorded…

16. September 202216. September 2022

MFRR Monitoring Report: 311 European media freedom violations recorded in first half of 2022

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) has published the latest edition of the MFRR Monitoring Report, outlining the state of media freedom throughout all European Union Member States and candidate countries from January to June 2022.

The Monitoring Report includes an analysis of the data compiled for Mapping Media Freedom, which collects and visualises all press freedom violations in the European Union and candidate countries. Although Moldova and Ukraine received candidate country status on 23 June 2022, alerts from these countries are not included in the 6 month analysis. However, given the severe impact Russia’s invasion has had on journalist safety and media freedom, the report includes a dedicated chapter focusing on Ukraine.

Read below for an overview of the report’s general findings. Specific thematic and country analyses can be accessed in the full report using the button below.

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In the first six months of the year, 311 media freedom violations were recorded in 29 countries. These involve 552 persons or entities related to media, including journalists, media companies, family members, journalists’ sources, and NGOs fighting for press freedom.

Verbal attacks, including harassment and threats, were the most common types of violations, making up 39.2% of the total number of attacks. This was followed by legal incidents (30.9%) and physical attacks (19.3%). Attacks to property made up 14.2% of alerts and 12.9% of alerts were linked to censorship, such as blocked access to information.

Among these attacks was the murder of Güngör Arslan, Managing Editor of the Turkish newspaper Ses Kocaeli.

As for perpetrators, private individuals remained the main source of attacks to journalists and media workers (36.3%), followed by police and state security (17.7%) and government and public officials (11.6%).

In terms of contexts in which violations took places, online and digital attacks increased significantly and became the most frequent context (22.8%) closely followed by attacks during protests (22.2%), violations in courts (15.1%), and in public places or on the street (11.3%).

After providing a general overview of the alerts, the report continues with thematic analyses focusing on the war in Ukraine, compliance with some topics raised in the European Commission Recommendation on the protection, safety, and empowerment of journalists, and the surveillance of journalists and media workers. These analyses are followed by country reports summarising the state of media freedom in Turkey, Greece, Spain, Poland, Malta, France, Germany, Serbia, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

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