Assaults on Journalists in Europe: an investigation of the period 2000-2016.

This report provides a mapping of assaults across European countries including Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan. This report explores assaults of any kind and deaths of journalists across Europe and generates insights into political and governmental practices Taking into account the current developing conditions of journalist imprisonments in Turkey, it is important to acknowledge the ways in which the absence of independent news organisations have an enormous impact for democracy in our societies.

Sample

The report identifies and records over 1,000 cases of assaults on journalists and media workers who were threatened, assaulted or killed in Europe, between 2000 - 2016.

Main Findings

More than 1,000 journalists and media workers were the victims of assaults or even died in the past 16 years in Europe because of their job. The most dangerous countries in Europe are Turkey, Russia and Azerbaijan. Ü The research does not and cannot portray an exact picture of the total number of assaults and deaths in Europe. It is unknown how many cases there are still ‘out there’ that have simply not been reported. Apart from the concrete numbers and findings presented above, one important, more abstract conclusion has to be considered as well: The cases of Turkey and Russia in particular showed that political systems and journalism (and more concretely press freedom and the safety of journalists) are interconnected. A stable democracy exists mostly because of a free press. Free, critical and safe journalism, in turn, is only possible in democracies with a fair judicial system. This general assumption can be made when looking at the big picture of the study.