Vienna, 26 January 2012 – Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, today met Zoltan Kovacs, Hungarian Minister of State for Government Communication in Vienna, to discuss media reforms in Hungary. During the visit initiated by Kovacs, Mijatović took note of the information provided by the Minister on the Government’s intentions to amend before the Constitutional Court-imposed deadline of 31 May 2012, those legal provisions against which the Court ruled last December. Mijatović offered assistance of her Office in the task and said: “The provisions highlighted by the Constitutional Court decision correspond to several concerns raised by my Office throughout the last one-and-a-half years.” >>

13 January 2012, Berlin/Budapest/Madrid – Three international media freedom and human rights organisations today call on the Hungarian Minister of Interior Sándor Pintér to withdraw the threat of criminal prosecution for breach of privacy rights against Hungarian journalist Attila Mong who published a leaked letter from EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on his blog. The Hungarian Interior Ministry has alleged that the 19 December 2011 letter, in which Barroso criticises Hungary’s new central bank law for being incompatible with EU legislation, should not have been published as it constitutes a violation of the privacy of correspondence of the Prime Minister. Interior Minister Pintér is reported to have said that the journalist Attila Mong could face several years' imprisonment for this criminal offence. >>

23 November 2011, Toronto - Today, 23 November, is the International Day to End Impunity (IDEI). The IFEX community has chosen this day to honour those who have been silenced forever for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and to raise awareness that their killers often go unpunished. This day marks the anniversary of the Ampatuan massacre in the Philippines in 2009, which was the single deadliest incident for journalists in recent history and is a solemn reminder of the risks taken to inform the public and speak truth to power. >>

16 November 2011, Budapest - Hungary’s new model of media regulation is creating a chilling effect and undermining freedom of expression said an international partnership mission comprised of leading press freedom and media development organizations today.   The partnership mission to Hungary, which took place from November 14th to 16th, included meetings with lawyers, journalists, editors, professional associations, representatives of civil society, the new media authorities, and the government representative to discuss the situation regarding the enactment and implementation of the new media law, which went into effect on January 1, 2011. >>

Sarajevo, 14 November 2011 – The economic standing, editorial independence and autonomy of public service media need to be improved, to avert political interference, achieve managerial stability, ensure sustainability and stable funding for the public service media, in order for them to fulfill their role, concluded participants of an international seminar on public broadcasting, held in Sarajevo today. Over 50 directors general of public service media, senior government officials, representatives of regulatory authorities and civil society from the Regional Cooperation Council’s 12 South East European members analyzed the state and way ahead for public service media in South East Europe 20 years into the democratic transition, at the seminar South East Europe 20 Years On: Transformation from State to Public Broadcasting. >>

Vienna, 24 October 2011-Croatian journalist Dragutin-Drago Hedl is the winner of the 2011 Dr. Erhard Busek - SEEMO Award for Better Understanding in South East Europe. An 11-member international jury honoured Hedl for his outstanding contribution to improving inter-ethnic communication and reconciliation, as well as for his investigative reporting on war crimes committed in Croatia in the 1990s.    Drago Hedl was born in 1950, in Osijek, Croatia, a town 280 kilometers east of the capital, Zagreb. He began his career in 1975 with the literary magazine Revija in Osijek. From 1980 to 1991, he worked as a journalist and editor for the main regional daily Glas Slavonije. Upon the outbreak of the Serbo-Croat war in Croatia, Hedl refused to participate in war propaganda efforts and acts of hate speech. As a result, he was sacked in 1991 when politicians and the local army bosses stormed the paper’s building. >>

Sarajevo, 14 October 2011 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, today called upon governments and businesses in South Eastern Europe to refrain from politicizing the media and urged journalists to enhance their co-operation and professional standards. Mijatović was speaking in Sarajevo to journalists from across South Eastern Europe on the closing day of the OSCE’s first region-wide media conference. The two-day event focused on major challenges to media freedom in the region, including violence against and intimidation of journalists, restrictions of independence of public service broadcasters and broadcast regulators, curbs on political and economic independence of media and improving employment conditions of journalists. >>

Brussels, 11 October 2011 - A high-level group to provide recommendations for the respect, protection, support and promotion of media freedom and pluralism in Europe has been convened by European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes. The group, which will be fully independent, will be chaired by the former President of Latvia, Professor Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga. The group's members have been selected for their expertise in their respective fields and for their complete independence. They are Professor Herta Däubler-Gmelin, former Minister of Justice of Germany, Professor Luís Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro, European University Institute and former Advocate-General at the European Court of Justice and Ben Hammersley, digital pioneer & Editor at Large of a technology magazine. The European Commission will provide the secretariat of the Group. >>