International Press Institute (IPI)

With the conclusion of the 13th Party Congress, watchdog groups foresee continued or worsened suppression of press freedom in Vietnam.

EU leaders should send a strong, public message that improved relations, economic or otherwise, will be tied to substantial improvement in Turkey’s domestic human rights record.

The suspected murderer was a long-time listener to Hazım Özsu’s show; after being arrested, he reportedly said that he had killed the radio presenter because he disliked some of his remarks on the radio.

“We believe the repeated denigration of journalists, combined with the ruling party’s attempts to exert greater control over the country’s public service media, are creating an increasingly hostile climate for critical reporting which serves a fundamental role of holding the government to account.”

“The EU has sat on the sidelines for too long. Repeated inaction to stop the undermining of media freedom and pluralism first in Hungary, and then in Poland, has allowed this model of media capture to grow and spread to other Member States. The cost of further inaction is simply too high.”

Media increasingly becoming target of police violence and arrests; more than a dozen journalists were arrested during the most violent crackdown on protesters in Myanmar.

Report by Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) members finds that “Poland is now taking worrying steps down the path established by Hungary, whose government has in the last decade created and then exported a system of media capture unprecedented in the EU”.

The International Press Institute expressed solidarity to members of the media in Myanmar and called on the military which staged a coup on 1 February to reverse course and return to democracy and fundamental rights.