As long as there is pressure, there is hope

This is a very special newsletter to me. A roaring one, a crying one, an ultimately personal one.

You receive this update on ECPMF's activities on the day before the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists 2018, on 2 November. To our furious regret this day was never more relevant than today. According to Unesco's 2017/18 report "World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development" for 2006 to 2017, more than 1000 journalists worldwide have been killed for reporting the news and bringing information to the people. In nine out of ten cases the killers go unpunished. In 2017, for the very first time, more journalists have been killed in countries without armed conflict than with. To be absolutely clear in numbers here: that means two murdered journalists every week.

And yes, we are talking also about our very own backyard: until today there is impunity for the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, murdered on 16 October 2017 by a car bomb outside her home in the EU Member State of Malta. And also in the case of murdered journalist Ján Kuciak in the EU Member State of Slovakia those who ordered the killing are still to be found, almost nine months after Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kušnírová were shot dead on 21 February 2018.

To look beyond the numbers we sat down with Ján Kuciak's parents Jozef and Jána and with Daphne Caruana Galizia's son Matthew to talk about what impunity means in Europe, in the year 2018. 
 

Please find the very personal interview with Jána and Jozef Kuciak here!

Please find the in-depth interview with Matthew Caruana Galizia here!

Even though we think we know about these murders, after listening to the voices of Jozef, Jána and Matthew you will feel different about them, I assure you! We at the ECPMF all do.

Please read, feel and act! End Impunity now!
With best wishes from Leipzig,
Sophie Albers Ben Chamo
 

The ECPMF partners are: Index on Censorship, International Press Institute (IPI), Ossigeno per l'informazione, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT), South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO)

The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) is a non-profit European Cooperative Society, based in Leipzig, Germany. The ECPMF was founded in 2015 to promote the European Charter on Freedom of the Press throughout Europe. The ECPMF and its partners preserve and defend media freedom by monitoring the state of free media in Europe, providing news and tools on media freedom issues, initiating activities and providing practical support to journalists at risk.

The ECPMF is supported by: European Commission, Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig, Free State of Saxony, City of Leipzig