The Council of Europe, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of State of Luxembourg, is organising an international conference on 29 April in Luxembourg to discuss the challenges in prosecuting crimes against journalists and to explore ways to prevent impunity of these crimes.
Held in the framework of the Council of Europe ‘Journalists Matter’ Campaign for the Safety of Journalists and under the auspices of the Luxembourg Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, this annual thematic conference of the Campaign will be held under the theme ‘Building the paradigm against impunity’. It will bring together international experts, legal professionals, journalists and human rights defenders to examine various legal frameworks, case law and national practices to prosecute crimes against journalists.
The conference will focus on the prosecution pillar of the 2016 Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Recommendation on the protection of journalism and safety of journalists and other media actors, which contains specific measures to be taken by states to prevent violations of media freedom, to protect journalism and journalists effectively, and to prosecute crimes committed against them.
The ‘Journalists Matter’ Campaign’s main goal is to improve the safety conditions that journalists work in across Europe, notably by adopting and implementing national action plans to protect journalists and enhanced legal and institutional standards. Other aims are setting up effective remedies at the national level to address violations of media freedom, improving the investigation of crimes against journalists, and ensuring the proper sanctioning of perpetrators.
Impunity for the murder of journalists continues to be one of the major threats to journalists’ safety and media freedom. Since its launch in 2015, the Council of Europe Safety of Journalists’ Platform has published over 2,000 alerts on serious threats to media freedom, including 42 alerts on cases of impunity, mainly concerning the killing of journalists.
The conference will be opened by Elisabeth Margue, Minister of Justice and Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister for Media and Connectivity of Luxembourg, and Matjaz Gruden, Director for Democracy of the Council of Europe.
The conference will be followed, on 30 April, by the third annual meeting of the national focal points of the ‘Journalists Matter’ Campaign.
