On 6 November 2010, prominent Russian journalist Oleg Kashin was badly beaten with a steel pipe on his doorstep and nearly killed
CATEGORY: Europe and Central Asia
Joint international emergency press freedom mission
Leading watchdogs to visit Istanbul, Ankara next week to visit Turkey ahead of election
Macedonia: Government advertising undermines role of journalism
The successor nations to the former Yugoslavia are among the most difficult places for journalists to work in Europe, a fact borne out by the latest quarterly report from Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project.
Index Awards: Tamas Bodoky on the refugee crisis, freedom of information and crowdfunding
The population of Hungary is very much polarised on the migrant issue. Hardliners support the government’s approach in
Montenegro: Using journalists as political pawns undermines the role of the media
Smear campaigns mean more journalists are exiting the profession, leaving a vacuum to be filled by those who work for lower pay and to lower standards
Russia’s targeting of NGOs ensnares journalist associations
Most of the Russian NGOs defending freedom of the press are blacklisted as “foreign agents”, while facing excessive pressure for non-compliance, writes Mapping Media Freedom correspondent Andrey Kalikh
Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink on her recent deportation from Turkey
The top of Frederike Geerdink’s blog, Kurdish Matters, still reads: ‘The only foreign journalist based in Diyarbakir’. The Dutch reporter was the only foreign journalist in Turkish Kurdistan until 9 September 2015 when she was deported from the country
Freelance journalists in Belarus face fines for working with foreign media
In Belarus, dozens of freelance journalists were fined between 2014 and 2015 for working for foreign media without an accreditation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Estonia shows further lack of concern for freedom of information
On 19 September, the Estonian Minister of Education, Jürgen Ligi, accused the Estonian Public Broadcaster’s new Russian-language TV of disclosing
Dunja Mijatovic: We don’t need new laws limiting speech
Each autumn, more than 1,000 government and civil society representatives from 57 countries of the OSCE
Manick Govinda: Artistic expression is a value that must be defended
Ahead of the Battle of Ideas 2015, Manick Govinda explores why art should be dangerous, unsettling, funny, an emotional journey, beautiful, entertaining and, yes, obscene.
Julia Farrington: Pre-emptive censorship by the police is a clear infringement of civil liberties
In 1972, Michael Scammell, first editor of Index on Censorship magazine wrote in the first edition – “Freedom of expression is not self-perpetuating, but needs to be maintained by the constant vigilance of those who care about it.” We obviously haven’t been very vigilant here in the UK













