ARTICLE 19

Discussions around preventing the abuse of counter-terrorism laws, protecting the safety of journalists, and combatting religious intolerance, must be focused on bringing practical national-level changes to protect civil society space and dissent, while routine human rights violators must be brought to account.

Forty-seven MEPs and 14 press freedom groups joined a resolution underscoring the lack of effective domestic legal remedies for journalists targeted in Turkey’s media crackdown.

Impunity for crimes against journalists is becoming a “new normal”; legal protections for critical, investigative reporting have been weakened both offline and online.

Under two news pieces of draft legislation, anyone ‘insulting the state’ could face up to 15 days in prison; those judged to be propagating ‘false information’ would face fines.

Ismayilova has suffered years of persecution because of her journalism exposing the corruption of the Aliyev regime.

Fifteen protesters were convicted after they chained themselves around a plane at Stansted Airport in an effort to prevent the deportation of asylum seekers.

60 rights groups are joining Google employees in calling for termination of Project Dragonfly, a censorship and surveillance equipped search engine in development for use in China.

The defence was given inadequate time and facilities to prepare, and there were repeated changes in the composition of the panel of judges, revealing a blatant disregard for fair trial standards.