PACE Speaker: “Azerbaijan and Turkey are leaders in violating the rights of journalists“

The rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on freedom of journalists and the press, MP from Denmark Morgens Jensen considers Azerbaijan and Turkey to be the leaders in Europe in terms of violations of journalists' rights.

“Violations of the rights of journalists and the media in general continue to grow everywhere. There were 180 such cases in 2015, up from 280 cases in 2022. The worst situation is in Azerbaijan and Turkey. In these countries, and a number of others, we see serious attacks on journalists, including murders, harassment, smear campaigns against media workers, and especially women. Today, 68 journalists are in detention in Europe and this is a huge problem that we must solve,” Jensen said in an interview with the Media Box resource during the current PACE session.

When asked what he proposes as speaker on press freedom Jensen said: "We ask these countries to live by the standards of the Council of Europe, of which they are members, to change the legislation and its application so that this does not happen. We also call for the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

We also call on all countries to develop a national media development strategy and start a dialogue between the press and the government in order to achieve respect for media freedom and security," Jensen said.