In this policy brief published by Freedom House, Amy Slipowitz, who leads The Fred Hiatt Program to Free Political Prisoners, writes on autocrats’ persecution of legal and judicial professionals around the world. Citing Freedom House data between 2014 and 2024, Slipowitz points to at least 78 countries (varying from dictatorships to democracies), where judges, prosecutors, and lawyers have experienced retaliation in the form of detention, prosecution, and imprisonment. What gives rise to such large-scale repression? Slipowitz outlines two political contexts: 1) Persecution to protect the status-quo (Iran cracking down on the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement; Myanmar responding to the pro-democracy movement after the 2021 coup) and 2) Persecution to strengthen a new regime (early years of Xi Jinping in power in China and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in power in Türkiye). Slipowitz lists recommendations, urging for action against repression that targets legal professionals.

Civil Liberties Union for Europe released its fourth annual report, Liberties Media Freedom Report 2025. Based on the data provided by 43 partner organizations, the report covers the state of media freedom and pluralism, the safety of journalists, freedom of expression and access to information, and relevant legislation across 21 EU Member States. One of the main findings is high media ownership concentration (in Croatia, France, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden). As the EU is approaching the stage of enforcement concerning its key press-related laws, the report calls on the EU bodies to cooperate with civil society and urges national authorities to ensure the proper transposition of the European Media Freedom Act and the Anti-SLAPP Directive into national legislation.

This report, published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), interrogates the scale of the Vietnamese government's abuse of Article 331 of the penal code, which criminalizes infringements “upon the interests of the state,” to persecute critics. Used “not only to silence prominent activists and whistleblowers, but to retaliate against ordinary people who complain about poor services or police abuse, Article 331 is the government’s handy tool to infringe upon the basic rights of Vietnamese citizens,” said Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia Director at HRW. The report identified at least 124 people sentenced to long prison sentences under the article between 2018 and February 2025.

Published by Tech Global Institute, this white paper s a result of 12 digital rights organizations convening in Kathmandu, Nepal, last year to share lessons in combating digital authoritarianism in South Asia. The paper analyzes the digital rights challenges in the region – state control, imposition of external regulatory models, among others – and focuses on Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The authors stress the urgency of forming a South Asian digital rights coalition: “Such a coalition would facilitate regional collaboration, enabling civil society to collectively advocate for a more equitable, locally relevant approach to digital rights.”

This report, released by Amnesty International, documents Argentina’s 2024 as a “year of serious setbacks in the exercise of the right to protest.” The implementation of the so-called Anti-Picket Protocol marked patterns of repression and criminalization targeting dissenters. Based on interviews with protesters, human rights lawyers, medical workers, and journalists, the report recorded at least 15 protest actions during which the state resorted to excessive use of force; the corresponding numbers are alarming: 1,155 people injured; 33 individuals hit with rubber bullets in the head or face; 50 media workers injured; 73 people receiving criminal charges for their participation in the protests. Read the report here (in Spanish only). 

Published jointly by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the report focuses on economic charges – tax evasion, money laundering, blackmail, terrorism financing, fraud, and illegally receiving foreign funds – as tools to silence individual journalists and entire media outlets. “That media companies are obliged to defend their work from fair legal challenge is nothing new,” writes Andrew Heslop, Executive Director, WAN-IFRA, “[...] But when doing so becomes disproportionate, overburdensome, or simply a convenient way to censor with a veneer of legal legitimacy, it is a warning – a step towards the erosion of trust, transparency, and accountability upon which the entire system relies.” The report includes eight case studies: Abzas Media (Azerbaijan), El Faro (El Salvador), Erick Kabendera (Tanzania), Jimmy Lai (Hong Kong), José Rubén Zamora (Guatemala), Maria Ressa and Rappler (Philippines), NewsClick (India), and Nika Gvaramia (Georgia). 

Based on survey data from 33 countries, this recent report, published by The Future of Free Speech, tackles the following questions: In the face of various kinds and degrees of restrictions, how much do people support free speech? What matters do people think they should be allowed to debate and critique? While majorities in surveyed countries generally support free speech, the exact figures vary significantly – between 54% and 88%. The highest levels of support for free speech are in Scandinavian countries, but also Hungary and Venezuela. Japan, Israel, and the US have dropped considerably in support since the 2021 edition of the report. “Most nations show high levels of support for free speech in the abstract,” the report states, “but support is lower and more divided when it comes to statements that are offensive to minorities or one’s own religion, supportive of homosexual relationships, or insulting to the national flag.”

In the 2023-2024 academic year, PEN America recorded 10,046 cases of school book bans in the US. A recently published report analyzes the unique titles affected, more than 4,000 of them, applying 37 variables concerning the type of book and its content. The results show that the bans are removing entire identities from library shelves: “36% of all banned titles featured characters or people of color and a quarter (25%) included LGBTQ+ people or characters. Of titles with LGBTQ+ people or characters, over a quarter (28%) feature trans and/or genderqueer characters.” With the analysis of graphics and illustrations, certain identity-targeting becomes even more blatant: “73% of all graphic and illustrated titles feature LGBTQ+ representation, people or characters of color, or discuss race or racism.”

Amnesty International published the English translation of its report, originally released in Spanish, on online gender-based violence against journalists in Argentina. The study documents digital violence targeting gender-diverse and women journalists from 2018 until 2024, evaluating the impact on freedom of expression in the country. Based on 36 interviews and 403 survey responses, the report found that almost two-thirds, or 63.5%, of the respondents had experienced digital violence in the past six years. Isolated attacks or insults make up 98.3% of the cases, followed by harassment or trolling, sexual harassment or threats of sexual violence, and threats of physical violence. In more than half of the cases, coverage of abortion was the trigger, followed by reporting on femicides, gender-based violence, and human rights. Almost half of the respondents said they self-censored on social media. For more on online gender-based violence against journalists, revisit Dávila v. National Electoral Council, a landmark decision from the Colombian Constitutional Court.

Published by members of the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media, this report analyzes the state of media and democracy in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey. Based on the map of key indicators and corresponding data, the authors conclude, “as decidedly as ever,” that the region’s media are in a systemic crisis, manifesting in “how they are defined, regulated, owned, financed, and managed.” Among the many factors negatively impacting the media of the Western Balkans and Turkey are journalists’ exposure to pressure and attacks, SLAPPs, small numbers of journalism students, media ownership concentration, lack of transparency, limited representation, political instability, and authoritarianism.

Published by the INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the report reviews the country’s human rights record in 2024. Drawing from its monthly reports on the repression of dissent, the Centre has documented relevant court cases, legal reforms, the Tamil community activists demanding accountability for war crimes, and discrimination against LGBTQI+ individuals. With regard to press freedom, the report refers to cases of persecution, assaults, attempted abductions, and surveillance targeting journalists. The government has also curtailed the public’s right to peaceful assembly. In a blow to digital rights and freedom of expression, last January, the controversial Online Safety Bill was passed by a majority vote, despite warnings from civil society. 

Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) published its annual Europe-focused report documenting press freedom violations in the EU Member States and nine candidate countries between January and December 2024. MFRR recorded a total of 1,548 press freedom violations with 2,567 entities or media professionals involved. The 359 of those violations were online attacks – a significant increase from 266 such cases recorded in the previous year. Legal attacks against journalists also occurred more frequently: 319 cases concerning 556 media workers or organizations. MFRR described demonstrations and protests as “among the most dangerous environments for journalists in 2024”: more than 50% of the 271 protest-related press freedom violations documented were physical attacks on reporters – with police or state security forces often being the perpetrators.

In this submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Egypt in January 2025, Amnesty International assesses the country’s human rights framework and its implementation of previous UPR’s recommendations. “Since Egypt’s third UPR in 2019, the country has remained in the throes of a protracted human rights and impunity crisis,” the group states. Evaluating the current state of freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly on the ground, Amnesty underscores that thousands of people – journalists, activists, and protesters among them – have been arrested arbitrarily and/or faced unjust persecution, while at least 600 websites, including news, politics, and human rights platforms, have been blocked since 2017. On the occasions of rare protests, Amnesty stresses, the Egyptian authorities have resorted to unlawful force in their crackdown and mass arrests.

As part of a series surveying online-gender-based violence, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) published a report that examines TikTok’s content moderation in English, French, German, and Hungarian. The results point to algorithmic bias. Using the method of qualitative analysis, the ISD researchers entered racist and misogynistic slurs – twelve in total, three for each language – as prompts in TikTok’s search engine and analyzed the produced outcomes. In two-thirds of the videos examined, the platform’s search function and recommendation algorithms “perpetuated harmful stereotypes,” effectively creating routes that connected “users searching for hateful language with content targeting marginalized groups.”

This report, published annually by 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, documents systemic violations of Palestinians’ digital rights – violations amplified by the 15-month Israel-Gaza war. What roles do Israeli authorities and social media companies play in restricting digital spaces for Palestinians? From hateful and discriminatory content and surveillance systems to the militarization of AI and large-scale damage to communication infrastructure, the report surveys the impact on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association, right to privacy, and right to internet and information access.

This Handbook, published by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), is designed to guide individual public watchdogs and small non-governmental and media organizations that could be targeted with a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) but have no support of a legal department. How can you minimize your vulnerability to being sued by the rich and powerful? What are the strategies of defense against SLAPPs? If you are dealing with a threat or a lawsuit already, how can you get help? The Handbook addresses defamation, copyright and trademark law, protests, whistleblowing and commercial and official secrets, and data protection. CASE includes a disclaimer: “The best precaution is always to ask a qualified local lawyer in your jurisdiction for advice. This Guidebook is meant as the next best option. It is not legal advice [...].”

The report was put together by the Latin American Observatory of Digital Threats, an alliance of organizations – Derechos Digitales among them – defending digital rights and investigating digital security in Latin America. A “synthesis” of the OLAD members’ work from December 2023 to May 2024, the report builds on two methods: 1) context monitoring, which makes a joint effort to examine the digital security context in the region, and 2) data schematization, which concerns the cases documented by each organization of the alliance individually – 411 cases in total. The issues addressed include surveillance and espionage, online gender-based violence, critical infrastructure attacks, and other online freedom of expression violations in the countries where the OLAD organizations are based: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, México, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

This Amnesty International report charts the deployment of surveillance technology by Serbian authorities, who use digital repression tactics to control and persecute civil society. Based on technical digital forensic research and extensive interviews with spyware victims and Serbian civil society members, the report documents Serbia’s ubiquitous use of data extraction products, including NSO’s Pegasus spyware and the new NoviSpy spyware system – revealed by Amnesty for the first time in this report – targeting journalists, activists, and protesters. “Implement a human rights regulatory framework that governs surveillance and is in line with international human rights law and standards,” one of the report’s recommendations to Serbian authorities states. “Until such a framework is implemented, a moratorium on the purchase, sale, transfer, and use of all spyware should be enforced.” 

The Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) concluded 2024 with a report on the further erosion of media safety and freedom of expression in the country. The PPF has documented patterns of violence against journalists – targeted killings, abductions, arrests, physical assault, intimidation, and legal harassment. As waves of protests swept across Pakistan after the February 2024 election, disputed by the opposition, attacks on the media followed, while effective action on the part of the authorities did not. From January until December 2024, the PPF recorded at least 162 attacks on journalists and media workers. They include two killings, 72 assaults, and four abductions, among others.

The article, published by Media Defence, reviews some of the written submissions – third-party interventions and expert opinions – that the organization filed before domestic courts in 2024, striving to foster press freedom at national levels. The list of countries includes Albania, Angola, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Mexico, Romania, Serbia, and Thailand. The cases vary in the issues considered: Media Defence filed arguments on source confidentiality, sedition laws, satire, incitement, restriction of information access, artistic expression, respect for private life, data protection, and surveillance.

Published by Access Now, this new report responds to states’ efforts to introduce platform regulation frameworks (like the EU’s Digital Services Act, for example). Many such laws aimed at regulating platforms turn into tools of oppression, as Access Now has documented extensively. To help ensure that policymakers seek platform accountability respecting international human rights standards and the rule of law, the report offers a checklist consisting of five principles: 1) Ensuring institutional checks and balances of state power; 2) Safeguarding an independent and impartial judiciary; 3) Establishing transparent and good governance; 4) Protecting and enabling free and safe civic space; 5) Establishing and adequately enforcing data protection principles before regulating online platforms.

The TrialWatch initiative of the Clooney Foundation for Justice published a report on Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and trials. Authored by Zimran Samuel, who is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, the report zooms in on the blasphemy laws in practice (and malpractice) based on the monitoring of trials in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, over the course of 6 months in 2022. The monitoring concerned 24 cases, which amounted to more than 250 hearings: in 15 cases, the accused were detained; 217 examined hearings resulted in adjournments, most frequently because prosecution witnesses or complainants were absent; in five cases, the defendants showed mental health concerns; two cases resulted in convictions – one life sentence and one death penalty. “There are few barriers to prevent essentially anyone from registering a case,” Samuel writes, “and accused persons are often swiftly arrested [...] becom[ing] mired in proceedings that stretch on nearly indefinitely.”

The report, prepared jointly by the Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina (CADAL) and the Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI), covers Nicaragua’s crackdown on artists and cultural workers. CADAL and AFI focus on the period between 2018, when mass protests against President Daniel Ortega swept Nicaragua, and 2023; the government still resorts to silencing measures, such as prosecution, imprisonment, and denaturalization, against dissenting artists. The report’s Chapter 2 analyzes the laws and policies used to suppress expression, including through the tactics of surveillance, harassment, and disenfranchisement; the report’s legal experts show such measures are incompatible with Nicaragua’s international human rights obligations. In between chapters, CADAL and AFI feature artwork by Nicaraguan cartoonist and illustrator Pedro X. Molina on the themes of censorship, persecution, exile, and resistance.

The third edition of the overview report on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) in Europe indicates a clear trend: SLAPPs continue to proliferate on the continent. Prepared jointly by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), the report refers to a total of 1,049 SLAPP cases between 2010 and 2023. The authors note, however, that the numbers do not represent an exhaustive survey and are likely only the “tip of the iceberg.” For now, the number of SLAPPs identified in Europe in 2023 alone is 166, and many were initiated in Italy, Romania, Serbia, and Türkiye. In total, SLAPPs were filed in 41 countries across the continent, and the report lists some countries for the first time, like Monaco, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, and Denmark. 36% of the 2023 SLAPP cases were related to corruption, and 16% concerned environmental issues. Journalists are still targeted more often than any other public watchdogs, while Europe’s rich and powerful are still the most frequent SLAPPers: businesses and business people initiated almost half of the 2023 cases, and politicians filed over a third of them.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ) released a report on press freedom violations against women journalists in Africa – a total of 258 recorded between 2019 and 2024. While underreporting explains why the number of violations appears to be lower than in other regions, a clear trend emerges: the most extreme acts of violence – such as physical attacks, abductions, and murders – are disproportionately high. Since August 2023, when civil war erupted, Sudan has been deadly for reporters: journalists Halima Idris Salim and Samaher Abdelshafee were killed; journalist Inaam Ahmady was threatened at gunpoint while her home was looted and set on fire. Egypt accounts for 17% of the documented violations: the country’s women journalists have faced arrests, legal harassment, media shutdowns, physical and sexual assault, threats, and intimidation. Nigeria accounts for 12% of the cases, pointing to a disturbing trend: armed groups or unknown assailants often abduct women journalists, with notable cases being Priestba Nwockocha of Radio Rivers (2023), Amra Ahmed Diska of Adamawa Broadcasting Corporation (2021), and Chinenye Iwuoha of Federal Radio Corporation (2020).

The American Bar Association Centre for Human Rights, Media Defence, and Thomson Reuters Foundation are reviewing cases of harassment and persecution of lawyers who represent journalists. The research, a first of its kind, surveyed the last ten years and identified 40 cases, most of them across Guatemala, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia, Belarus, China, and Hong Kong. The preliminary report notes the cited figures likely do not fully account for the persecution of lawyers defending journalists worldwide. The initial findings point to four groups of threats. 1) Criminal and other lawsuits: examples include “anti-state, anti-terror, bribery and corruption laws, as well as false news laws.” 2) Undermining the lawyers’ ability to defend journalists: tactics range from seizure of lawyers’ property (such as case files) to disqualification from a particular case to cyberattacks and spyware. 3) Undermining the lawyers’ ability to practice their profession: authorities resort to arbitrary disbarment or suspension of licenses, abuse of disciplinary proceedings, change of bar association rules, and “foreign agent” labels. Finally, lawyers have faced 4) Death threats, physical assault, forced exile, and restrictions on travel and communication.

Scholars at Risk (SAR) released their latest annual report on the state of academic freedom globally. The findings are alarming and go beyond authoritarian countries – liberal democracies have also been culpable of undermining higher education. From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, SAR identified 391 attacks on scholars, students, and academic institutions in 51 countries and territories, highlighting troubling developments in 18 of them, namely Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Israel, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palestine, Russia, Türkiye, Sudan, Ukraine, the UK, and the US. Over the reporting period, SAR documented the devastating impact of military conflicts on entire education systems, crackdowns on political dissent with arrests and prosecution of professors and students, silencing and dismissal of those criticizing officials, and new laws and policies eroding university autonomy. The report put a spotlight on campus protests prompted by the Israel-Gaza conflict and the now-limited freedom of expression spaces at universities in several countries, including the US.

Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) points to 12 SLAPPs initiated against women journalists covering such gender issues as sexual abuse and harassment, workplace misconduct, and broader issues (like child abuse) around the world. Türkiye is becoming a hotspot for such cases, with other countries being Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, the US, Lebanon, France, and Greece. Legal actions – on defamation charges most frequently – are often initiated by state officials or individuals and institutions with ties to the government. Women reporters who cover feminist events have been accused of “participating in unlawful assemblies,” “spreading misinformation,” or “violating religious sentiments.” The authorities, in Türkiye especially, often detain women journalists during feminist events and damage their equipment.

A new UNESCO issue brief outlines a growing trend in allegations of financial wrongdoing as tools to silence journalists. Based on 120 relevant cases dated between 2005 and 2024, the brief detects a significant increase in cases between 2019 and 2023 – 60% of those reviewed. The most frequent charges are extortion, tax evasion, and money laundering; among other allegations identified are blackmail, embezzlement, and foreign funds obtained illegally. Regionally, more cases occur in Asia and the Pacific, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. As a tactic to target journalists, the misuse of financial laws has features different from other ways of silencing critical voices: accusations of financial wrongdoing almost exclusively come from state actors; unlike defamation charges, such accusations do not require an established connection between journalists’ published work and the charge; facing the complexity of alleged financial crimes, journalists and media outlets need tax and other legal expertise, which they often do not have access to.

In this policy brief published by UNESCO, Joan Barata, Senior Legal Fellow for The Future of Free Speech, focuses on the right to information and one specific aspect within the realm of exceptions to this right – the so-called “public interest override.” The policy brief cites the relevant international law provisions and national and international case law as courts have used the public interest override to balance the public’s right to know with other competing matters and interests, like national security, privacy, commercial confidentiality, or law enforcement. Among the principles and recommendations listed, the first one reminds states and other relevant actors that any restrictions imposed on the right to information “must respect the three-part test established under international and regional human rights standards (legality, legitimacy, and proportionality).”

In a report on transnational repression targeting women journalists outside their home countries, the Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) has recorded a dramatic increase in states’ attempts to silence those abroad – from 19 cases in 2023 to 49 in 2024. The perpetrators are Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Türkiye, Ethiopia, Malaysia, and Venezuela. These states have resorted to intimidation, threats, and legal harassment, while Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia have also employed such tactics as physical attacks, abductions, and assassination attempts against journalists in exile. One of the major cases the report highlights is that of journalist Sima Sabet: “[Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’] attempt to assassinate me through hired criminals on UK soil is an unequivocal act of terrorism,” Sabet told CFWIJ.

This report, prepared by Human Rights Watch, Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers, and Right to Defence and published in May 2024, focuses on the lawyers who represented politically prosecuted Belarusians and shed light on the egregious human rights violations in detention – until the authorities came for them, too. The result of this retribution campaign is the “nearly complete takeover of the legal profession in Belarus”: the regime has resorted to criminal prosecution of lawyers, harassment, intimidation, arbitrary revocation of their licenses, and subjection to abuse while in detention. Amendments to the Law on the Bar and Practice of Law, along with public statements of Belarusian officials, eliminate the independence of lawyers and assign them the roles of “statesmen.” The sentences of six lawyers – Maksim Znak, Aliaksandr Danilevich, Vital Brahinets, Anastasiya Lazarenka, Yuliya Yurhilevich, and Aliaksei Barodka – range from six to ten years.

The latest report by the Human Rights Center “Viasna,” published over the summer, provides an updated review of the crackdown on rights and freedoms in Belarus, covering the period from March 2023 to March 2024. The report shows that, under the pretext of tackling extremism and terrorism, the Belarusian authorities have been amending legislation and using it to ramp up repression. The report outlines applicable international standards, surveys national legislation, explains the practice of designating individuals and legal entities as “extremist” and “terrorist,” and unpacks criminal prosecution practices employed to restrict free speech – on charges from the dissemination of fakes to “insulting government officials” to hooliganism, among many others.

In this newly released report, part of the Engaging Tech for Internet Freedom initiative, ARTICLE 19 focuses on tech companies and their corresponding human rights obligations in authoritarian states – in this issue, China, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Zooming in on freedom of expression and privacy, the report unpacks how tech companies have been responding to oppressive legal and political conditions. Case studies show that companies have often referred to domestic laws in explaining their collaboration with the authorities, thus allowing for censorship, propaganda, breach of data privacy, and surveillance. ARTICLE 19 calls on companies to employ a human-rights-centered approach in decision-making and comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The report lists recommendations for the states in the region and tech companies operating within them. Find more relevant ARTICLE 19 publications on China, Myanmar, and Vietnam here.

This report, published by Access Now and prepared by Franco Giandana Gigena, Latin America Policy Analyst, serves as a reference book for policy-makers in Latin America by systemizing examples of and recommendations on AI-tailored public policy. The report underlines the best practices that can pave the way to human-rights-based regulatory approaches without forestalling innovation; in addition of the fundamental rights focus, Access Now singles out four more minimum standards for regulating AI: transparency, effective monitoring mechanisms (studies of impact on fundamental rights specifically), enforcement and applicable sanctions, and consideration of local contexts.

Director of the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Expression at the Universidad de Los Andes, Co-Chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, and Former Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the IACHR, Catalina Botero-Marino contributed this chapter to the volume on The Impact of the Inter-American Human Rights System: Transformations on the Ground (New York, 2024). The chapter lays out how the current freedom of expression standards – including those on speech about the issues of public interest and prohibitions of prior and indirect censorship, among others – came to be established within the Inter-American Human Rights System. The chapter then focuses on the transformative influence that two of those standards have had on domestic legal systems: “the standard regarding the limits of criminal law and the standard regarding the scope and nature of the right to access public information.”

Commissioned by the UN Department of Peace Operations and the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, this recently published report delivers a conceptual analysis of the three major challenges of our time – hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation – and their similarities and differences. Written by Claire Wardle, PhD, Brown University, the report focuses on the contexts of conflict and high risk. Wardle provides an overview of relevant human rights law and international humanitarian law, stressing the “need for responses that respect freedom of expression while addressing harmful speech.”

This summer, the UN launched Global Principles for Information Integrity, which tackle the main information challenges of our technological era – misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. Grounded in international law and consultations with Member States, scholars, media, civil society, and private sector representatives, the principles serve as a framework that invites “multi-stakeholder action for a healthier information ecosystem.” There are five principles: 1) Societal Trust and Resilience, 2) Healthy Incentives, 3) Public Empowerment, 4) Independent, Free, and Pluralistic Media, and 5) Transparency and Research. The recommendations follow the principles’ descriptions and address technology companies, AI actors, advertisers and other private sector actors, news media, researchers, civil society, states, other political actors, and the UN.

Published by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and prepared together with co-founders of the Freedom for Media, Freedom for All network, the report starts with a warning: the scale of the damage done to press freedom in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte has yet to be known. From July 1, 2022, to April 30, 2024, 135 attacks and threats against journalists have been documented; 45 of those cases are instances of “red-tagging,” and 19 are cases of unlawful surveillance. Alarmingly, 37% of all the cases recorded allegedly bear links to government agents. Eight journalists received charges of libel and “cyber libel.” Three reporters – Rey Blanco, Percy Lapid, and Cresencio Bundoquin – have been killed during that time. Calling for more media to cover human rights issues, the CMFR stresses, “Press freedom is designed to create a society where citizens are continually educated, learning what they must know, helping them develop the judgment to choose good leaders, and committed to democratic development so citizens can exercise their rights without fear.”

This report, published by Human Rights Watch in collaboration with Florida Rising and Rule of Law Impact Lab at Stanford Law School, argues Florida’s school curriculum distortions constitute censorship and are inconsistent with “international human rights standards on education, access to information, and discrimination.” The report outlines the legal framework that contributes to harassment and discrimination based on race, sex, and gender in Florida classrooms: House Bill 7, or the Stop WOKE Act; House Bill 1557, or the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law; and House Bill 1069, an extension of the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans.” What adds to the laws are state education policies, one of which forwards a “patriotic” curriculum with incorrect facts about the history of slavery in the US. The report’s “International Human Rights Law Analysis” section lists Florida’s obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, namely: upholding the rights to education free of discrimination, culturally appropriate education, free expression, and health.

ARTICLE 19’s newly published report is a three-part series on Queer Resistance to Digital Oppression in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It is based on the experiences of more than five thousand LGBTQI+ people from Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. The research, conducted in cooperation with The De|Center and local experts, tackles two overarching questions: How do the authorities in the MENA region weaponize technology – from messaging and dating apps to social media – to target the LGBTQI+ community? And how can tech companies help protect the community and other marginalized groups? Part I of the report reviews the regional context, pointing to the laws that have enabled the oppression. Part II includes the findings from interviews, surveys, and focus groups and analyzes the “harrowing evidence of tech-enabled police and state violence against the LGBTQ community.” Part III lists recommendations for tech companies, outlining concrete ways through which the companies can fulfill their human rights obligations. 

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) published a thematic report on the digital age challenges to inclusion and public debate, focusing specifically on digital literacy and content moderation processes. Premised on the international human rights principles, the report offers normative guidance – in essence, a content governance framework – to states and other relevant actors “​​in promoting an internet that is truly accessible to all persons, without discrimination.” The report concludes with a list of recommendations, one of which urges states to adopt policies that tackle “hate speech or disinformation coming from public figures” but warns that “[s]uch policies should be aligned with international human rights standards, especially the three-part test of legality, legitimate aim, and necessity and proportionality.”

The Gender Apartheid Inquiry, conducted by a Panel of UK Parliamentarians and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, seeks to investigate the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran and join the conversation on codifying gender apartheid. The Inquiry’s recently published report argues that while the Rome Statute includes the crime of gender persecution, “the experience of women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran, although different in some respects, requires a more accurate representation in law” due to the institutionalization and scale of oppression. The report reviews the states of education, employment, movement, expression, assembly, association, and access to justice for women and girls in the two countries. The Inquiry then examines the gender apartheid concept and considers legal avenues for codifying it.

The report, funded by the Earth Journalism Network at Internews, interrogates the global state of climate and environmental journalism in the context of rapidly spreading mis- and disinformation, jurisdictions repressing media freedom, lack of resources and access to data, and risks that accompany climate reporters and cause self-censorship. The study includes a literature review, methodology outline, and results based on the multi-language survey and semi-structured interviews, totaling 744 survey respondents and 74 journalists interviewed. Half of the respondents said they had experienced verbal threats, almost a third of them had been subjected to legal threats or lawsuits, while another third had received threats from governments – and these are only some of the alarming findings. The report concludes with recommendations for funding organizations, newsrooms, journalists, and further research.  

The study, published by Access Now, analyzes the UN Security Council resolutions between 2001-2023, focusing on digital, cyber, and human rights and the language used to refer to them. The findings show that when it comes to including digital rights in the broader human rights and security agenda, the UN Security Council is falling behind if compared with “more digitally aware” UN bodies. The report emphasizes that the UN Security Council “is overlooking the overall advancement of international law protecting people, peace, and security in the digital age, focusing on operational and physical security at the expense of human rights and human security.” The paper concludes with recommendations for the Council’s Member States.

How can media freedom literacy (MFL) be strengthened in the participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)? Establishing the not-so-often-emphasized connection between media literacy and media freedom, this report, commissioned by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM), offers practical tools for government bodies, scholars, media organizations, civil society, and digital platforms. Chapter 4 defines and explains MFL, while Chapter 5 reviews key legislative and regulatory frameworks at international and national levels, including the European Media Freedom Act and Digital Services Act, among others, and approaches developed in Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, UK, US, and Canada. Chapter 7, a broader review of MFL projects and interventions, is followed by recommendations to various stakeholders and case studies of projects that promote MFL.

As part of the International Press Institute’s World Congress this year, the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM) hosted a panel discussion on AI and its impact on media pluralism and public interest information. The list of speakers included Julia Angwin, investigative journalist, David Kaye, former UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, and Damian Tambini, Distinguished Policy Fellow in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. This outcome report recaps the discussion in the form of colorful post-its and a concise summary of key opportunities and challenges that Generative AI presents. The report concludes with recommendations for the OSCE RFoM, states, and other stakeholders, calling for more “research, analysis and multi-stakeholder engagement” that the rapid technological development demands.

The Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University Delhi, LIRNEasia, and the School of Law at BRAC University published a report that outlines the social media regulation frameworks and trends in Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh. South Asia is an understudied region in terms of platform regulation, even though the three countries in focus have seen a public debate on the matter unfolding for the past few years. The report aims to fill that research gap, analyzing “(a) the intermediary liability framework governing social media platforms; (b) the relevant cybersecurity and other information and communication technology (ICT) regulations; and (c) key speech laws (mostly penal) applicable to end-users.” Case studies show that in Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, social media governance relies on control of the online information flow, with its practices being internet shutdowns, content blocking, and online speech criminalization. There is a growing centralization of power in all three countries and an absence of functioning parliamentary and court oversight over executive decisions that restrict speech.

How should states approach the regulation of AI to ensure the new technologies strengthen democracy rather than undermine it? Addressing this question, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) drafted an AI policy framework tailored for the states in the region. The document centers on the right to freedom of expression, drawing from Article 9 of the ACHPR, Article 19 of the UDHR, Article 19 of the ICCPR, and the right to privacy as it is enshrined in Article 12 of the UDHR and Article 17 of the ICCPR. MISA structures the framework in five parts, concluding with “Operationalisation of Human Rights and Ethics,” which breaks down several steps for states and companies to undertake for the protection of users’ rights.

PEN America has been documenting book banning in the United States since 2021 and recently recorded a staggering number – 4,349 instances of book bans took place between July and December 2023, a leap from 1,841 recorded in the preceding semester. This new report, however, goes beyond the numbers. Providing data, the authors also focus on what often stays hidden behind it: the stories in the books under attack and of librarians, teachers, students, and writers affected. The most targeted narratives are those on sexual violence, LGBTQ+ themes (transgender identities in particular), and race and racism. But despite the gravity of the situation, there is hope. The report shows resistance to book banning is growing nationwide, and students are at the forefront.

Access Now published the annual report of the #KeepItOn coalition on internet shutdowns in 2023. The coalition unites more than 300 civil society organizations, rights and advocacy groups, think tanks, media outlets, and other groups from around the world working to end internet shutdowns. In bright visuals easy to grasp, the report shows 2023 has been the worst year in internet access disruptions since 2016, when the #KeepItOn campaign was launched. The coalition recorded at least 283 internet shutdowns in 2023 (compared with 201 in 2022), and at least 80 of them affected entire regions or countries. The year’s leading trigger for internet shutdowns (at least 74 recorded ones in 9 countries) was conflict; at least 173 internet shutdowns corresponded with violence.

The report, released by SMEX, a non-profit advancing digital rights across West Asia and North Africa (WANA), examines the moderation of content on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) on social media in the WANA region. In this context, the study looks at content moderation policies and their practical application by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, and YouTube. The authors turned to desk research, internal consultations, a survey in which regional SRHR organizations and activists participated, in-depth interviews with some survey respondents, and policy assessments based on the Ranking Digital Rights methodology. Documenting multiple episodes of SRHR content censorship, the report builds its critique on several levels – from the absence of SRHR-tailored policies to the “vague grounds” for posts’ removal and content in Arabic being subject to stricter restrictions than comparable content in English. The report concludes with recommendations for platforms.

PEN America has published the fifth edition of its Freedom to Write Index, an annual report on the detention and imprisonment of writers globally. The number of writers behind bars reached its highest – at least 339 – in 2023. The top jailers are China, with 107 writers in prison, and Iran, with 49 writers deprived of liberty, detaining more female writers than any other country. Amidst war and freedom of expression crackdown, Israel and Russia made it to the top 10 jailers’ list for the first time. Analyzing changes in trends since 2019, the Index registered an increase in online commentators as a targeted professional designation: bloggers and other writers publishing their work on social media make up the majority of those detained. The report concludes with recommendations to the 10 most expression-restrictive governments, states that commit to upholding freedom of expression, donors, and UN special procedures.

7amleh, the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, published a study on Palestinian digital rights and the global impact of EU legislation - the Digital Services Act (DSA) in particular. The study tackles the following questions: How does the DSA’s approach to hate speech and other harmful content affect the digital rights of Palestinians and advocates for Palestinian rights? What are the potential consequences of the DSA’s politicization by the EU in the Israel/Palestine context? What are the advantages and risks of the DSA for Palestinian digital rights? The study explains the DSA, interrogates its relevance for Palestinian digital rights, includes a case study of events that “​​worryingly point to the DSA having been applied with bias” in the timeframe starting from October 7, and concludes with recommendations addressing the EU institutions, civil society, and online platforms.

The report, published by ARTICLE 19, interrogates digital influence in Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal, and Thailand. As China broadens the scope of its technology and partnerships in normalizing the “authoritarian approach to digital governance,” the study sets out to understand China’s digital superpower aspirations by unpacking its regional strategies. “This report shows that dual infrastructure and policy support from China, in the hands of authoritarian states, has contributed to increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and information, the right to privacy, and other acts of digital repression,” Michael Caster, ARTICLE 19’s Asia Digital Program Manager, comments. Defining the Digital Silk Road as an umbrella term for digital policies that are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the report explains China’s domestic digital landscape, outlines the evolution of the country’s domestic and foreign digital policies, and offers case studies on the digital infrastructure and governance in each of the four focus countries. The report concludes with recommendations to governments, the internet freedom community, and the private tech sector.

A collaboration between the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), the paper interrogates political communication and media trust in the age of AI, along with possible technical and policy solutions. ISD Research Fellows Christian Schwieter and Milan Gandhi start by explaining generative AI systems and survey ways through which political actors have been resorting to AI tools. The report builds on the empirical analysis and tailors its insights for policymakers. One of the recommendations is to “[r]aise awareness of how seemingly non-political uses of generative AI can be exploited for politics, in particular the creation of non-consensual intimate content.” After evaluating emerging solutions, including legislation, the authors conclude with an emphasis on the importance of “restoring citizens’ trust in democratic institutions” and stress that technology regulation and reduction of disinformation are solutions of only a partial nature.

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) published guidelines tailored for the use of digital platforms at the time of elections. They aim to both mobilize the platforms’ positive potential and combat the spread of disinformation, hate speech, and online gender-based violence, among other possible harms. The Guidelines were adopted by the General Assembly of the Association of African Election Authorities in Cotonou, Benin, on 3 November 2023 and represent a “crucial normative framework” for the continent. Emphasizing obligations to preserve the rights to equality and non-discrimination, free and fair elections, freedom of expression, access to information, freedom of assembly, rights to privacy and remedy, protection of women’s rights, as well as ethnic, cultural, and linguistic rights, the Guidelines directly address states, election management bodies, social media, regulatory bodies, political parties, “African traditional institutions and religious bodies,” civil society, and journalists. The Guidelines are in Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) presents its submission to the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (IE SOGI). The IE SOGI’s thematic report for the UN Human Rights Council’s 56th session will explore how freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association rights “relate to protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” The APC submission focuses on the digital sphere and includes inputs from civil society activists and organizations that review the following countries: India, Paraguay, Uganda, Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa, Indonesia, and Türkiye. Underscoring that “violence and discrimination initiated offline can be aggravated and perpetrated online, and vice versa,” the submission concludes with recommendations to governments and tech companies.

Published by Masaar, a community of lawyers and technologists advancing digital rights in Egypt, the article explains “the Fediverse” as a challenge to the concentration of Internet power in the hands of few tech companies. Two core ideas build the Fediverse: 1) decentralization and 2) federalism. The article dives into those and gives an overview of the Fediverse’s technological foundation, its philosophy, objectives, first application and evolution. The article also lists some of the networks currently running - Mastodon, PeerTube, Diaspora, and Pixelfed - and discusses the Fediverse’s future along with the challenges it entails, such as difficulty in attracting users, lack of sustainability guarantees, and security threats. The paper concludes on an optimistic note, encouraging Internet users to try a Fediverse application: “Building a free Internet is the only way for it to support its users’ rights and freedoms. Thus, tools like the Fediverse are very important for the future of the Internet and accordingly for the future of us all.”

The report, written by Nic Newman and published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism with the support of the Google News Initiative, starts straightforwardly: it declares 2024 as “another challenging year ahead for journalism.” Artificial intelligence, the disruptions it delivers to the media sector, critical elections taking place around the world, and the continuing wars force journalists and media outlets “to rethink their role and purpose with some urgency.” Journalism content will face radical distribution changes due to Search Generative Experiences and AI-driven chatbots that will reduce media outlets’ audiences. The report includes findings from a survey conducted between November and December 2023 in which over 300 digital leaders from more than 50 countries and territories participated. Despite the grim forecasts, the report still offers ways for journalists and media to adapt, “Embracing the best of AI while managing its risks will be the underlying narrative of the year ahead.” In this podcast episode of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Nic Newman discusses the report’s findings and more.

The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) published a study of the so-called “news deserts” - areas that lack “sufficient, reliable, and diverse information from trustworthy media sources” - in Europe. The report results from an all-EU research project that assessed challenges and opportunities faced by local and community media outlets in the 27 Member States. The CMPF methodology includes such indicators as economic and political conditions, local journalists’ safety, the degree of media’s inclusiveness towards minorities and marginalized groups, and engagement with the audience. The report concludes with recommendations for the EU, Member States’ national and local authorities, media organizations, journalists, scholars, and other stakeholders. CMPF highlights an urgent issue to address - “the lack of data related to the economic and financial information for both local and community media, as well as locally focused audience measurements and more detailed research on trust, audience perspectives, perceptions and engagement within local media markets.”

Access Now published a report that explains what role internet shutdowns and service disruptions play in the investigations of international crimes. With the case law on international criminal liability in relation to internet shutdowns and service disruptions being meager, Access Now highlights one ruling only - the 2011 ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I decision in the Situation in Libya case - and marks the decision’s significance as the ICC acknowledged shutdowns' relevance. Yet, the report notes the decision is “insufficient to deter authorities from shutting down internet and telecommunications services during conflicts and civil unrest.” Access Now calls on “courts with jurisdiction over international crimes (i) to examine the precedent set by the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I in the Situation in Libya, and (ii) to give due consideration to shutdowns and disruptions of internet and telecommunications services in evaluating the cases brought before them.

The report, published by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in December 2023, examines the state of democracy in five West African countries - Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and Niger - analyzing how the democratic erosion affects their press freedom. The report explains the main drivers of democratic recession in the sub-region and highlights “military coup d’états, terrorism and violent extremism, and economic misgovernance.” The three bring crises into the countries’ politics and security, resulting in a shrinking space for media outlets to operate. Among the challenges that the press faces are new repressive legislative projects, the existing laws misused to persecute the media, and extreme economic precariousness. On top of those, journalists are forced to work in unsafe conditions, facing verbal abuse, physical attacks, arrests, and incarceration. MFWA calls for the restoration of democratic governance and offers recommendations for the ECOWAS Commission, governments, regulatory authorities, media organizations, and their owners.

Cartooning for Peace and Cartoonists Rights - network organizations with missions to defend the rights of cartoonists globally - published a report on the challenges of censorship that cartoonists face today. Based on the monitoring and case studies from between 2020 and 2022, the report reviews increased censorship in authoritarian states, hate speech, online trolling, disinformation, and manipulation that targets press cartoonists. The report also looks at criminalization and displacement and how the two became the new normal for many cartoonists. “When you question authority, when you hold up a mirror to authority, that’s what makes you a satirist or a cartoonist,” says Rachita Taneja, a cartoonist from India. “And it is essential that in any healthy democracy that satirists should not face censorship [...]. [O]nly a very insecure and very authoritarian government would silence satirists.” Concluding with recommendations for cartoonists’ organizations, governments, and social media, the report’s authors intend to follow up with a more detailed analytical report in 2025. 

The Future of Free Speech and The Dangerous Speech Project developed an interactive toolkit on the use of counterspeech. The toolkit starts by explaining counterspeech through its various definitions and introducing the phenomenon of “counternarrative” with examples of NGOs’ and activists’ campaigns. The toolkit asks, “To what content does counterspeech respond?” and follows with counterspeech goals, strategies, and practical considerations. The examples of counterspeech analyzed by the authors include #iamhere, an international collective counterspeech network; Mirrors of Racism, a Brazilian campaign; the work Hasnain Kazim, a German journalist; Reconquista Internet (RI), a counterspeech group created in response to hate group Reconquista Germanica (RG); and the story of Megan Phelps-Roper, the author of “Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism.”

Published by Masaar, a community of lawyers and technologists advancing digital rights in Egypt, this paper explores the interdependence of freedom of information and freedom of the press and media. Noting that more than fifty constitutions around the world recognize the access to information right, the paper explains how significant freedom of information laws are and what positive impact they have on press freedom: freedom of information enables journalism - investigative journalism in particular. Other areas directly impacted by freedom of information that the paper explores are protection against censorship, public trust, accountability of those in power, media pluralism, and democracy in general. “[T]he right to information can enable media to challenge dominant narratives and offer a platform for marginalized voices,” the paper argues. “[...] media freedom is essential for a healthy and vibrant democracy, protecting human rights, promoting public discourse, and informing the public.”

The East African Court of Justice (EACJ) offers a guide to the registry and court users - East Africans and everyone interested in the EACJ. Arranged in a Q&A format, the guide provides answers to more than forty questions, such as “Why is the East African Court of Justice needed?”, “Who may appear or be represented before the Court?”, and “What are the Form and Content of the Court’s Judgments, Rulings, Decisions, Decrees and Orders?”. The guide starts by explaining the Treaty that established the East African Community (EAC), the Treaty’s objectives, and principles. The guide then covers the EACJ’s structure, the scope of its jurisdiction, and the court’s access, trial, and appeal procedures. The guide concludes with a glossary of legal terms as per the meanings assigned to them by the EAC Treaty.

Africa’s ICT think-tank - the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) - published a report documenting the trends of the last decade in internet freedom in Africa. CIPESA has been releasing its annual State of Internet Freedom in Africa report since 2014; the 2023 publication celebrates the report’s 10th anniversary. Thematically reflecting on the past years of research and advocacy for digital rights in Africa, this special edition offers a clear look at the future. The featured essays discuss “Digital Democracy Vs. [Digital] Authoritarianism,” internet shutdowns, social media content regulation, data governance, online activism, new forms of internet censorship, gender dynamics online, state accountability for digital rights, disinformation, media literacy, and surveillance. “[W]hile the essays in this series largely paint a grim picture of where Africa stands today, not all is doom and gloom,” writes Dr. Wairagala Wakabi, CIPESA’s Executive Director. “Each essay in this report offers suggestions for how these authoritarian roadblocks can be navigated to ensure that the great majority of citizens in Africa can enjoy their online rights and for digital democracy to flourish.”

In this report, Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, unpacks gendered disinformation - a phenomenon that, Khan argues, demands more clarity and research. The Special Rapporteur builds on her earlier reports on disinformation and gender inequality in freedom of expression, as well as her conversations with individuals who experienced online abuse and consultations with regional civil society representatives, governments, and companies. Defining and analyzing the concept of gendered disinformation, the Special Rapporteur turns to a feminist framework and applies an intersectional approach. The report stresses the “dual nature” of gendered disinformation, explaining it as “a strategy to silence women and gender-diverse voices” and noting it can be “a form of online gender-based violence in some situations.” Three more parts follow the phenomenon’s framing: “Survivors, harm, actors and vectors,” “Roles, responsibilities and responses: States,” and “Roles, responsibilities and responses: companies and civil society.” The report concludes with recommendations for states, social media companies, and other relevant actors.

"The Next 25" is a collection of essays published by Article3.org to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to look forward to the next 25 years leading up to its 100th Anniversary. "This digital collection, created in collaboration with HRD@75 Partners, aims to enhance awareness and underscore the importance of the ongoing pursuit of freedom, justice, dignity, and equity for all. The essays offer uniquely positioned perspectives on how to effectively "future-proof" human rights for present and future generations, providing a blueprint for human rights stakeholders to use, reference, and build upon."

In collaboration with Jonction, a Senegalese digital rights group, and the Media Foundation for West Africa, the International Press Institute (IPI) developed a toolkit that outlines the legal frameworks guaranteeing press freedom, the right to access information, and journalists’ safety in Senegal. The toolkit examines 1) relevant international treaties and standards (UDHR, ICCPR, Universal Periodic Review, and others); 2) regional press freedom commitments (African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption,  The Windhoek Declaration among others); 3) human rights situation in Senegal; 4) regional and sub-regional courts; 5) Senegal’s national frameworks, legislation, and regulatory bodies impacting press freedom; and finally, 6) local resources that offer support to journalists. Ahead of the February 2024 elections in Senegal, "IPI hopes that the stakeholders working to protect and defend media freedom in [the country] and beyond can benefit from this toolkit as a resource to improve the operating environment for journalists in Senegal." The toolkit is available in English and French.

The article published in Digital Journalism, responds to the variety of threats that journalists are subjected to - surveillance, cyberattacks, gendered targeting, hate speech, and many others. The article offers an interdisciplinary framework of journalists’ safety, summarizing it in a conceptual model. The authors look at journalists’ safety through two dimensions: 1) personal (physical, psychological) and 2) infrastructural (digital, financial). The authors see safety on objective and subjective levels and argue “[i]t is moderated by individual (micro), organizational/institutional (meso), and systemic (macro) risk factors, rooted in power dynamics defining boundaries for journalists’ work, which, if crossed, result in threats and create work-related stress.” The article then examines the consequences of work-related stress: While in an ideal scenario stress leads to resilience, compromised safety can provoke journalists’ “exit from the profession” and thus undermine journalism as an institution. 

The United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity is a significant framework aimed at creating a safe environment for journalists and media workers. This comprehensive approach addresses the growing concerns about the risks that journalists face in their line of work. Here are the key elements of the Plan:

1. Awareness-Raising: Increasing public awareness about the critical importance of protecting journalists in ensuring a free and informed society.

2. Prevention: Implementing strategies to prevent attacks and threats against journalists, including safety training and creating a safer working environment.

3. Protection and Prosecution: Developing mechanisms to protect journalists who are at risk and ensuring the prosecution of those responsible for violent acts against them. This includes combating impunity for those who attack or murder journalists.

4. Partnerships: Encouraging collaboration among various stakeholders, including governments, media houses, non-governmental organizations, and UN agencies, to improve the safety of journalists.

5. Monitoring and Reporting: Setting up systems to monitor and report on attacks against journalists, which is crucial for understanding the scope of the problem and devising effective responses.

6. Supporting Victims: Providing support and assistance to journalists who have been attacked, and to the families of those who have been killed.

7. Policy and Legal Frameworks: Promoting the development of national laws and policies that safeguard journalists, in alignment with international human rights standards.

The Plan emphasizes the importance of a free, independent, and pluralistic media in a democratic society and seeks to ensure that journalists can perform their work without undue interference or fear of violence. Its successful implementation requires a commitment from all stakeholders, including states, media organizations, and civil society, to work collectively towards creating a safer environment for journalists around the world.

The ECtHR’s Press Service published an updated factsheet that includes the Court’s case law and pending cases grouped by themes on hate speech. The factsheet explains two approaches used by the Court in considering such cases: 1) “the approach of exclusion from the protection of the Convention,” based on Article 17; and 2) “the approach of setting restrictions on protection,” based on paragraph 2 of Article 10. The two approaches structure the first part of the cases’ list, which is not exhaustive; each case is marked by a narrower corresponding theme (“Threat to the democratic order,” “Racial hate,” “Incitement to violence or hatred against people because of their sexual orientation,” “Incitement to ethnic hatred,” and “Extremism” among many others). The factsheet’s second part contains two big groups of cases sorted as “Online hate speech” and “Hate speech and right of others to respect for private life.” The most recent cases highlighted in the factsheet include Lenis v. Greece and Rivadulla Duró v. Spain (both are decisions on admissibility), Ossewaarde v. Russia, Fragoso Dacosta v. Spain, Sanchez v. France, and Valaitis v. Lithuania. 

The Commission's proposal for the Regulation aims to safeguard media independence and promote media pluralism across the EU, in addition to establishing specific requirements for Very Large Online Platforms as defined under the Digital Services Act.

For the thirteenth year in a row, there has been a drop in internet freedom worldwide, with digital repression causing the largest decline in Iran. Myanmar was found to have the worst internet freedom conditions in the world, while President Rodrigo Duterte's use of an antiterrorism statute to restrict news sites critical of his administration made matters worse in the Philippines. After a presidential candidate whose campaign manager employed internet trolls to intimidate media outlets was elected, Costa Rica's reputation as a champion of internet freedom came under danger. Attacks on the right to free speech have become more widespread; out of the 70 nations that Freedom on the Net covers, 55 have reported facing legal consequences for online speech, and 41 have executed or killed individuals for their comments posted online.

With 47 governments using commenters to sway online debates, generative artificial intelligence (AI) poses a serious challenge to online disinformation tactics. Disinformation strategies have intensified as a result of the increased sophistication, accessibility, and ease of use of AI-based technologies. Governments have also improved and honed their online censorship strategies; in 22 countries, laws have been passed requiring or rewarding digital companies to use machine learning to filter out objectionable social, political, and religious content.

The defenders of democracy must apply the lessons they have learnt from previous internet governance issues to AI to preserve online freedom. AI has the potential to be a powerful tool for digital repression, increasing the efficiency, speed, cost-effectiveness, and ease of censorship, surveillance, and the production and dissemination of false information.

"The Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles presents the EU’s commitment to a secure, safe and sustainable digital transformation that puts people at the centre, in line with EU core values and fundamental rights."

The Guidelines aim to promote freedom of expression and information access while addressing illegal and harmful content. They call for states to apply regulation in accordance with international human rights standards and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Guidelines serve as a resource for policymakers, regulatory bodies, digital platforms, and civil society in their advocacy and accountability efforts. They will inform regulatory processes for digital platforms, leading them in an open, transparent, multistakeholder, and evidence-based manner. The Guidelines will contribute to UN-wide processes, such as the Global Digital Compact, the UN Summit of the Future, and the Code of Conduct for public information integrity.

The Global Expression Report 2023 provides a comprehensive analysis of the state of freedom of expression worldwide. It assesses 161 countries using 25 indicators to assign each a score between 0 and 100, categorizing them into various levels of expression freedom: In Crisis (0-19), Highly Restricted (20-39), Restricted (40-59), Less Restricted (60-79), and Open (80-100).

Key findings include:

1. **Decline in Global Expression**: There has been a significant decline in freedom of expression globally. The Global Expression Score, the mean average of country scores, has dropped by 6 points since 2012. Even more concerning is the Human Score, weighted by population, which shows a 13-point decline over the same period.

2. **Widespread Repression**: Around 80% of the global population now lives with less freedom of expression than a decade ago, affecting over 6 billion people in more than 80 countries. The 21st century has seen an increase in repression for the majority of the world's population.

3. **Disproportionate Impact**: The report highlights that more countries are experiencing declines in freedom than those witnessing improvements. Notably, countries with declining freedoms tend to have larger populations. For instance, 95% of countries that have seen advances in the last decade have populations under 50 million, whereas only 74% of countries with declining freedoms have populations of that size.

Overall, the report paints a concerning picture of the current state and trends of global freedom of expression.

Global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year.  Moscow’s war of aggression led to devastating human rights atrocities in Ukraine. New coups and other attempts to undermine representative government destabilized Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Peru, and Brazil. Previous years’ coups and ongoing repression continued to diminish basic liberties in Guinea and constrain those in Turkey, Myanmar, and Thailand, among others. Two countries suffered downgrades in their overall freedom status: Peru moved from Free to Partly Free, and Burkina Faso moved from Partly Free to Not Free.

The struggle for democracy may be approaching a turning point. The gap between the number of countries that registered overall improvements in political rights and civil liberties and those that registered overall declines for 2022 was the narrowest it has ever been through 17 years of global deterioration. Thirty-four countries made improvements, and the tally of countries with declines, at 35, was the smallest recorded since the negative pattern began. The gains were driven by more competitive elections as well as a rollback of pandemic-related restrictions that had disproportionately affected freedom of assembly and freedom of movement. Two countries, Colombia and Lesotho, earned upgrades in their overall freedom status, moving from Partly Free to Free.

While authoritarians remain extremely dangerous, they are not unbeatable. The year’s events showed that autocrats are far from infallible, and their errors provide openings for democratic forces. The effects of corruption and a focus on political control at the expense of competence exposed the limits of the authoritarian models offered by Beijing, Moscow, Caracas, or Tehran. Meanwhile, democratic alliances demonstrated solidarity and vigour.

Infringement on freedom of expression has long been a key driver of global democratic decline. Over the last 17 years, the number of countries and territories that receive a score of 0 out of 4 on the report’s media freedom indicator has ballooned from 14 to 33, as journalists face persistent attacks from autocrats and their supporters while receiving inadequate protection from intimidation and violence even in some democracies. The past year brought more of the same, with media freedom coming under pressure in at least 157 countries and territories during 2022. Scores for a related indicator pertaining to freedom of personal expression have also declined over the years amid greater invasions of privacy, harassment and intimidation, and incentives to self-censor both online and offline.

The fight for freedom persists across decades. When Freedom House issued the first edition of its global survey in 1973, 44 of 148 countries were rated Free. Today, 84 of 195 countries are Free. Over the past 50 years, consolidated democracies have not only emerged from deeply repressive environments but also proven to be remarkably resilient in the face of new challenges. Although democratization has slowed and encountered setbacks, ordinary people around the world, including in Iran, China, and Cuba, continue to defend their rights against authoritarian encroachment.

The UN resolution acknowledges that some new and emerging technologies may not be compatible with international human rights law. Evidence shows that emotion recognition technologies are fundamentally incompatible with human rights, and future resolutions should ban these technologies. The resolution also introduces stronger language on remote biometric surveillance systems, such as facial recognition, which raises concerns about their proportionality. The increasing use of biometric technologies has chilling effects on freedom of expression and behaviour, deterring people from participating in public assemblies or expressing their ideas or religious beliefs. Governments are called to prohibit remote biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces and mass surveillance. However, the core group failed to address new challenges for privacy, such as social media monitoring. The resolution is urged to include strong recommendations to ensure social media intelligence collection, analysis, and sharing strictly conforms with human rights standards and data protection frameworks.

This paper aims to identify practical measures to ensure beneficial cross-border data flows continue while addressing the risks they pose. It emphasizes the importance of commercial privacy and trusted government access in achieving trust. A trusted framework for cross-border data flows must be open to democracies operating under the rule of law, rights-protective, practicable, and scalable. The framework should provide meaningful privacy safeguards enforced through effective accountability mechanisms, be achievable by democracies that respect the rule of law, and be scalable to keep up with rapid global change. The paper suggests stakeholders should initiate a multilateral, transparent process that focuses on commercial privacy and trusted government access.

The toolkit is designed to assist digital rights activists in understanding the complexities of digital identification systems. It provides a framework for understanding these systems and breaking them down into distinct parts, especially for non-experts. The toolkit functions as a "choose your own adventure" game, where players select a Persona and navigate through the System, Harm, and Mitigation stages based on their circumstances. It can also be used to holistically analyze a specific digital ID system by selecting the System cards that apply to the system.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE) has released a report titled "Disinformation, pandemic and human rights". The report examines the impact of disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges of collective understanding, internet moderation practices, and the impacts of state measures on human rights. The RELE recommends States respect and guarantee human rights, including freedom of expression, and address the risks of violations during future health emergencies. The report emphasizes the importance of valuing public information and promoting digital debate during emergencies.

The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) as of August 25, 2023, mandates large online platforms and search engines to assess systemic risks to fundamental rights arising from their services. A policy paper by the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) and Access Now emphasizes the implementation of Article 34(1)b of the DSA, terming it "fundamental rights impact assessment" (FRIA). The paper highlights the absence of harmonized rules for conducting FRIAs and advocates for grounding assessments in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. It proposes harmonizing existing methodologies globally, focusing on mitigating risks to freedom of expression and information through meaningful and effective evaluations, with recommendations aiming to guide both the European Commission and the platforms in identifying and addressing the impacts of their services.

This 2021 Policy Paper published by ARTICLE 19 provides a detailed overview of the potential harms of Biometric technologies, including violations of the fundamental rights of privacy and freedom of expression as well as “data protection, human dignity, non-discrimination, self-determination and the right to access an effective remedy.” Further, abuse of these technologies by law enforcement and other state bodies can result in discrimination from profiling of marginalized and at-risk communities. The Policy Brief provides case studies on the use of facial recognition and emotion recognition technologies, and offers a broad range of recommendations. Based on the gathered evidence, ARTICLE 19 calls for “a moratorium on the development and deployment of all biometric technologies until vital human rights safeguards are in place.” 

The document underscores the significant negative impact such technology can have on media freedom within the OSCE region.

"The Representative concluded that the implementation of stringent measures is vital. This includes mandating effective and binding prior authorization of any surveillance on a journalist granted by an independent authority under judicial control. Additionally, such surveillance must be limited in duration and scope, and applicable only to the most severe offenses. Utilizing digital surveillance technology should be carefully justified and integrated into a robust rule-of-law framework, accompanied by a meaningful redress mechanism."

In a follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women, the Commission on the Status of Women issued these conclusions. They emphasize the importance of promoting human rights in the development, deployment, evaluation, and regulation of technologies, ensuring adequate safeguards to create an open, secure, stable, accessible, and affordable information and communications technology environment for all women and girls. The Commission acknowledges that technology can enhance women's and girls' rights, but it can also perpetuate gender stereotypes and negative social norms, perpetuating inequalities. It emphasizes the need to address structural barriers to achieving these rights. The Commission further calls for women's equal participation in decision-making and leadership positions for gender equality, empowerment, and human rights. To reach those goals, new policies and programs are required to promote digital technology use and address potential negative impacts.

"Offering a concise overview of the current state of content moderation on the largest social media platforms and the impacts on freedom of expression, the practical handbook seeks to dissect the complex intersection of freedom of expression, content moderation, and the business models of these tech giants.

The handbook, produced by ARTICLE 19 under the UNESCO project Social Media 4 Peace funded by the European Union, includes numerous concrete examples and cases to illustrate the questions raised by different standards, practices and policies pertinent to content moderation. It builds upon ARTICLE 19’s policies and expertise in content moderation and platform regulation and reflects ARTICLE 19’s long-standing calls that measures responding to problematic content including ‘disinformation’ and ‘hate speech’ must always conform with international standards on freedom of expression and other human rights."

"In the present report, the Special Rapporteur explores the linkages between the right to freedom of expression, including the right to information, and sustainable development. She introduces a paradigm shift in looking at sustainable development through the lens of freedom of expression. While recognizing important progress made in normative standards for access to information, the Special Rapporteur highlights that more is needed to ensure that the voices of those most disadvantaged in society are heard. She argues that only when both access to information and the effective participation of youth, Indigenous communities, the media, human rights defenders, civil society actors and others are fulfilled will the promise to leave no one behind be realized. As world leaders prepare to gather at the United Nations Headquarters in September 2023 to review progress on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, the Special Rapporteur calls for renewed political commitment to uphold freedom of expression, an enabler of sustainable development."

The 2021/2022 World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development report focuses on journalism as a public good, analyzing trends in media freedom, pluralism, independence, and journalist safety. The findings are based on data-driven analysis by UNESCO and Data-Pop Alliance, as well as original research by Economist Impact. The report highlights the importance of understanding journalism as a public good and its role in the wider conceptualization of information as a public good.

"This paper considers the impact of digital transformation on internationally recognised human rights, legal and constitutional rights, and domestically protected interests. It considers specific case studies, and provides a brief overview of international and domestic initiatives to protect ‘rights in the digital age’. Developed in the context of the 2022 Ministerial meeting of the Committee on Digital Economy Policy, this paper sets the scene for further discussion and supports policy makers in designing and achieving a rights-oriented and human-centric digital transformation."

In May 2023 the Council of the European Union issued this compromise text of a Directive of the European Parliament and Council to protect human rights defenders and journalists who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings, also known as strategic lawsuits against public participation or SLAPPs. The compromise text was issued based on a lengthy consultative process including input from the SLAPP Working Party and Member States. Overall, Member States support “the aim of the directive to eliminate obstacles to the proper functioning of civil proceedings, while providing protection for the right to freedom of expression and media freedom.” However, they also “stressed that the procedural safeguards provided in the directive should be carefully targeted and in line with the right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial, in order to eliminate the risk of abuses by those the directive aims to protect.” At the same time, the Directive should not prevent legitimate claims from benig heard. The compromise text must be approved by the relevant parties before it can form the “basis for the negotiations with the European Parliament in the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure (Art. 294 TFEU).”

"A new report entitled Free to Create: Artistic Freedom in Europe examines the challenges European artists and cultural workers face in the practice of their right to freedom of artistic expression. These range from laws that curtail creative freedom, attacks from non-governmental groups and online threats to the “under-the-radar” pressures that contribute to self-censorship. Artistic freedom is a core human right requiring protection and it has worsened recently under multiple challenges – political extremism, economic collapse, a global pandemic, threats from digitisation, an emerging environmental catastrophe, and the return of war within Europe – all crises with major impacts on human rights across society."

Freedom of expression and access to information is an essential human rights right that enables public engagement and participation in decision-making. It is integrated into the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and is incorporated into Goal 16, which aims to promote peaceful societies, justice, and effective institutions. However, the world still has a long way to go to meet the SDGs by 2030, particularly Goal 16, which concerns freedom of expression. This briefing assesses the progress of achieving Goal 16 and its contribution to achieving all SDGs, identifies gaps in international processes, and provides recommendations for the effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The briefing aims to contribute to discussions at the SDGs Summit in September 2023 and help States and the international community determine what must be done to make the most of this stocktaking moment.

"The present report is submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution 76/227. In it, the Secretary-General describes the challenges posed by disinformation and the responses to it, sets out the relevant international legal framework and discusses measures that States and technology enterprises reported to have taken to counter disinformation. The Secretary-General notes that countering the different manifestations of disinformation requires addressing underlying societal tensions, fostering respect for human rights, online and offline, and supporting a plural civic space and media landscape."

Law enforcement agencies face challenges in balancing freedom of expression with maintaining public order. They must manage safety issues, manage elections, natural disasters, and health emergencies while promoting respect for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Political, social, and economic factors contribute to these difficult situations. Journalists' freedoms are increasingly threatened, with 1,088 journalists killed in the past 12 years. In 2022, 45 media professionals were killed, prompting governments and law enforcement agencies to address public order issues, work with journalists, and communicate effectively with the public.

"Through the seven modules in this toolkit, officers and trainers can better appreciate how to equitably balance their public safety and order duties while enabling freedom of expression, and its associated freedoms, through better communications, provision of information, supporting the legal process, and enabling journalists to work safely."

"The Note provides an overview of the three main approaches to professional regulation – namely self-regulation, co-regulation and statutory regulation – and then delves in more detail into the key features of self- and co-regulation before describing the benefits of these systems and the different roles they can play beyond merely deciding on complaints about professionalism. The final section looks at a number of practice issues regarding the establishment of a self-regulatory system for independent media focusing on Myanmar, the only option given the current situation."

This Greek version of the HELP Course on Freedom of Expression (in Greek) was launched by the Department for the Execution of Judgments, in cooperation with HELP’s national partner, the Greek National School of Judges. The course discusses European standards on freedom of expression as applied to recent European Court judgments involving Greece finding violations of Article 10. It reviews 2 groups of cases, in particular. The Vasilakis group “concerns violations of the applicants’ freedom of expression due to civil courts’ decisions by which they were ordered to pay damages for defamation, slanderous defamation or insult, through articles published in the press or broadcastings of secretly filmed video-recordings.” The second group, the Katrami group, “concerns violations of the applicants’ freedom of expression due to the criminal convictions imposed on them for insult, defamation or malicious defamation.” Program materials include the online course, a Thematic Fact Sheet on Freedom of Expression (English), and a country fact sheet for Greece (English).

"Este kit de ferramentas foi criado pelo International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) para partilhar estratégias de defesa da liberdade dos meios de comunicação social na era digital com advogados e defensores dos direitos humanos. O Grupo de Trabalho de Direito dos Media do ISLP tem, nos últimos 20 anos, protegido a liberdade de expressão apoiando jornalistas e organizações não governamentais de vigilância que investigam, relatam e litigam assuntos que envolvem o direito à liberdade de expressão. O Grupo de Trabalho de Direito dos Media do ISLP também fornece aconselhamento jurídico relacionado com telecomunicações, liberdade de informação e leis de privacidade. O ISLP acredita que a liberdade de expressão é necessária para um governo transparente, responsável e democrático e é a base de uma sociedade livre. Este kit de ferramentas foi desenvolvido a partir da experiência dos editores em trabalhar com advogados, jornalistas e defensores dos direitos humanos na África Austral e Oriental. O ISLP tem trabalhado com as secções locais do Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) na formação de advogados e defensores dos direitos humanos do Malawi, Moçambique, Zâmbia e Zimbabué sobre a protecção da liberdade de expressão utilizando argumentos do direito internacional. A informação prática fornecida neste kit de ferramentas foi concebida para permitir que os defensores locais utilizem o direito internacional em órgãos regionais para defender a liberdade de expressão e argumentar a favor de uma maior protecção dos direitos humanos na SADC. Este recurso centra-se em argumentos de direito internacional para defender contra acusações criminais de difamação e ciberdifamação apresentadas contra jornalistas e bloguistas."