International Press Institute (IPI)

At his trial, Miroslav Marček testified that he shot Kuciak at the home he and Kušnírová shared. He said that he then killed Kušnírová – apparently unplanned – after she saw his face, chasing her into the kitchen and shooting her in the head.

Businessman Marian Kočner is accused of contracting the assassination, Miroslav Marcek and Tomas Szabo are accused of carrying out the killing, and Alena Zsuzsova is accused of acting as an intermediary.

Since 2010, the Hungarian government has systematically dismantled media independence, freedom and pluralism, distorted the media market and divided the journalistic community in the country, achieving a degree of media control unprecedented in an EU member state.

Based on the findings of a mission by press groups to Turkey, the report finds the judiciary unfit for purpose and calls for – among other things – the urgent revision of all anti-terror and defamation laws, and the end of the deliberate conflation of public criticism with terrorism propaganda.

An international mission comprised of 17 international organizations underscores its concern regarding the lack of guarantees offered by the Mexican state to solve the country’s grave freedom of expression crisis and the state’s failure to recognize the seriousness of the problem.

IPI has published a new resource for news outlets’ online moderators to address abuse that takes place on social media; it forms part of IPI’s Newsrooms Ontheline platform, which collects best practices for countering online harassment.

Those charged are Alena Zsuzsová, Tomáš Szabó, Miroslav Marček and Marian Kočner, a businessman who is accused of ordering the 2018 murder. They all face up to 25 years in prison or a life sentence.

Italy’s press freedom record is among the most problematic in Western Europe; it saw the sharpest increase in media freedom alerts recorded in 2018 according to the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists.