EU failing to protect journalists: rights group

The European Union has failed to tackle challenges to press freedom within its borders, notably from the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a rights group says.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says in a report that Brussels should do more to make member states defend media rights and that the EU’s institutions are “poorly equipped” to take such action.

“By not holding member states to account, the EU has failed to forcefully and consistently defend press freedom,” the organisation says, adding that some countries “backslide on their democratic commitments.”

In Hungary, state media had become “pro-government mouthpieces,” state advertising was used to “reward friends and punish enemies,” independent journalists had been marginalized and freedom of information laws had been tightened, the New York-based CPJ says.

But the EU had largely “procrastinated” instead of taking on Orban’s right-wing adminstration over the issue of press freedom, apart from low-level disciplinary action and European Parliament resolutions.

Across the EU, journalists also faced threats from criminal libel and blasphemy laws, surveillance that threatens their sources, and violence such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks by jihadists on the satirical magazine in Paris in January.

This failure to act by the 28-nation bloc stood in contrast to its insistence on press freedom as a key issue with candidates for membership, such as Turkey and the Balkan states, the CPJ says.

— AFP