Council of Europe member states should impose, without delay, a moratorium on the export, sale, transfer and use of highly intrusive surveillance software for journalists such as Pegasus. This is stated in the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Annual Assessment of threats to media freedom and safety of journalists in Europe, by the partner organisations of the Safety of Journalists Platform.
Apart from the unlawful deployment of spyware against journalists, main concerns highlighted in the 2024 annual report include the use of abusive lawsuits against journalists to hamper their investigative work and the precarious situation of many journalists in exile, notably from Russia and Belarus.
Released under the title ‘Press Freedom in Europe: Time to turn the Tide’, the report assesses the major issues undermining press freedom – including threats and intimidation, detention, restrictive legislation, abusive lawsuits, media capture and attacks on public service media – and issues recommendations t
o address them.
According to the report, both Hungary and Greece were singled out for criticism in the report of the Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware (PEGA), adopted by the European Parliament on 15 June 2023.
The Committee made targeted recommendations for Hungary, Poland, Greece, Cyprus and Spain, it is noted. MEPs said spyware ‘should only be used in member states where allegations of spyware abuse have been thoroughly investigated, where national legislation is in line with the recommendations of the Venice Commission and case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU, and where export control rules have been enforced.’
The assessment of threats to media freedom and safety of journalists in Europe further notes that member states must refrain from illegally deploying spyware against journalists and comply with their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights to ensure the legality, necessity and proportionality of each case.
It also
states that judicial authorities should fully investigate any alleged misuse of the software and governments should establish strict procedures for reviewing, using and storing any information obtained.
The Pegasus scandal, exposed by the journalistic collaborative project Forbidden Stories in 2021, revealed that nearly 200 journalists around the world have been targeted with Pegasus spyware. Spyware had been used to surveil journalists in Azerbaijan, France, Greece, Hungary, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
In the report, it is also said noted in 2023 the Council of Europe listed 13 member states which had completely removed defamation from their domestic criminal law, while four others – Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania and Serbia – had implemented partial decriminalisation.
Regarding Turkey, the report says that national security has been invoked to justify imprisonment of journalists, including under the accusation of extremism or terrorism of journalists with alleged links to the banned Kurdish Worker
s’ Party (PKK).
Commissioner for Human Rights releases memorandum on freedom of the media in Turkey
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Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, in a separate Memorandum on freedom of expression and of the media, and the situation of human rights defenders and civil society in Turkey, released on Tuesday, said that “freedom of expression is in peril in Turkey, with journalists, human rights defenders and civil society operating in a critically hostile environment, marked by systematic pressure and legal action against them’.
She further said the “deterioration of freedom of expression in Turkey has reached new, deeply worrying levels, characterised by numerous blatant violations of human rights standards. As time goes by with the authorities failing to address these violations, the damage caused to media freedom and freedom of expression in Turkey leaves an increasingly deep mark, leading to self-censorship by journalists and independent media. The same can be said
for the public in general, including the younger generation. All in all, the situation has generated an impoverished, one-sided public debate.
‘The judicial actions targeting journalists, civil society, human rights defenders and lawyers remain the most worrying manifestation of continuous and concerted pressure exerted in a deliberate attempt to silence critical voices and to prevent them from reporting on ongoing human rights violations in Turkey’, said the Commissioner.
‘The authorities should remedy this highly detrimental situation and create an enabling environment for the exercise of freedom of expression and of the media and freedom of association”, she added.
Source: Cyprus News Agency
