No Safe Harbor for Journalists in Europe, Even in Exile

It's a predictable pattern: journalists in the European Union have been intimidated, harassed, assaulted, beaten, shot, blown up, and killed – and then there's a cascade of denunciations in press releases and tweets.

Then nothing's done about it. But what can be done? And then it happens again.

Journalists in Europe had seemed relatively safer than those in other countries around the world where there was little to no rule of law, but the violence against them spiked again this year with the April murder of Greek investigative journalist Giorgos Karaivaz and then famed Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries gunned down in the streets of Amsterdam in July, dying nine days later.

No one has been apprehended in the killing of Karaivaz, who was known to have tight connections with the underworld and police, where he was said to be looking into corruption.

Two men were taken into custody in the shooting of de Vries, unnamed to protect their privacy, as media reports in The Netherlands indicated they were tied to a crime boss that the journalist had been probing.

The now seemingly endless siege against journalists spiraled after the 2017 car bomb killing of investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia on Malta, where she was looking into corruption at the highest levels.

But whomever ordered it hasn't been brought to justice.

And Slovakian businessman Marian Kocner, accused of being the mastermind in the February, 2018 murders of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova was acquitted.

While Slovakia Supreme Court judge Peter Paluda ordered a retrial because he said a lower court hadn't taken into account all the evidence, the apparent impunity in the Galizia and Kuciak killings set in motion a torrent of trouble for journalists in the EU, including those living in exile.

The killings weren't confined to the 27-member EU. In 2019, journalist Lyra McKee was shot while covering a riot in Derry, Northern Ireland, and Vadym Komarov was killed following an attack in Ukraine.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, authoritarian governments jumped at the chance to use it to corral journalists and try to keep them from reporting on corruption in contracts and disbursements.

Russian news editor Irina Slavina died after setting herself on fire in protest against what she said were authorities harassing her for her work.

Exiled Pakistani journalist Sajid Hussain Baloch, Editor-in-Chief of the online news magazine Balochistan Times, was found dead near the Swedish city of Uppsala in May, 2020.

Four months later, Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt – also living in exile in Sweden – was savagely attacked outside his home in Stockholm by three men who kicked and pummeled him.

He is Executive Director of the Nordic Monitor, which provides critical insight into the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has had journalists jailed numerous journalists.

The onslaught hasn't stopped even as the EU has been trying to find some way – any way – to protect journalists, including mulling a Media Freedom Act that hasn't taken shape yet.

“Forceful condemnation from EU governments to express support and solidarity is of course important to make it clear that these kinds of heinous crimes against journalists are unacceptable within the bloc’s borders,” Jamie Wiseman, Advocacy Officer for the Vienna-based International Press Institute told Blueprint for Free Speech.

But it can't stop there he said.

“Cross border investigations and information sharing can also be an important contribution. The best thing other EU governments can do to stop such attacks happening in the future is to ensure that all similar incidents in their own countries result in those responsible facing the full force of the law. Impunity breeds impunity,” he said.

And that's what's happening, even in heinous cases of journalists being attacked or intimidated or squeezed by governments, as in Hungary, the incidents soon forgotten or sidelined, the EU often vexed about what to do.

It is, of course, essentially impossible to stop a crime that can't be foreseen, as in sudden attacks on journalists, but there are mechanisms – such as sanctions and penalties – that can be used against governments, but often haven't.

A dangerous business

It's been mostly left in Europe and the EU to media freedom groups to grasp at ways to protect their own and work with bloc officials to find tools that might be effective in deterring attacks on reporters and the shutting down of independent media, as has happened in Hungary.

“There are comprehensive international standards for improving the safety of journalists and media workers from the Council of Europe,” Laurens Hueting, Advocacy Officer for the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), which is located in Leipzig, Germany told Blueprint.

“There is obviously a need to implement these standards better, in terms of prevention, protection and prosecution. Some efforts are ongoing on this also within the EU, which is developing its own mechanisms to complement these existing Council of Europe standards,” said Hueting, who is based in London.

On July 8, Erk Acarer, a columnist for Turkey’s independent Birgun newspaper who is living in exile in Berlin, was attacked and injured outside his home by three men who reportedly told him to stop writing.

Police spokesperson Patricia Braemer said at the time that, “It cannot be excluded that his job as a journalist is the background for this assault.” Germany is home to some 2.774 million people of Turkish heritage.

“Open aggression and physical attacks on journalists is something we’re more used to seeing in Turkey. But the assault on Erk Acarer outside his apartment in Berlin is another worrying indication that even those journalists living in exile can still face danger because of their critical journalism,” said Wiseman.

Hueting added that, “Living in exile is apparently not enough for Turkish journalists to escape the persecution they face inside their own country,” which the EU has tolerated without further hindering Turkey's 16-year effort to join the bloc.

“The reasons for the attack on Acarer are to be found in the hostile climate for free press that President Erdogan has created in Turkey,” added Hueting.

Four days before de Vries died on July 15, Alexander Lashkarava, a Georgian cameraman badly beaten by far-right extremists during a protest against an LGBTQ Pride march was found dead at home, his TV station said.

Georgia's Interior Ministry said that there would be a criminal investigation into the journalist's death even as critics said the government looked the other way as more than 50 journalists were attacked by anti-LBGTQ groups protesting the planned march, that was called off.

The EU has shown itself to be reluctant to be tough, even in the case of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko - called The Last Dictator in Europe - sending up a fighter jet to force a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania to land in June so that dissident journalist Roman Protasevich could be arrested.

Limited sanctions were imposed, including travel bans, asset freezes of senior Belarusian officials, businessmen, and entities that aid his regime but they have only emboldened him to continue a crackdown on journalists and the media.

The Council of Europe, representing the 27 heads of state, has produced a guide on How to Protect Journalists, including a study that said out of 1,000 journalists and other news providers questioned that more than a third believe there are no effective means by which they can report threats.

That highlights how difficult the task is.

Renate Schroeder, Director of the European Federation of Journalists, based in the EU's headquarters of Brussels, said the guide offers sound ideas, and that the Dutch government had an exemplary record in working with police to protect journalists. Which didn't save de Vries.

“Governments must do much more to protect journalists and empower their work on many levels. That includes guaranteeing the protection of their sources, and giving them full access to documents,” she told Blueprint.

The (European) Commission is working on a recommendation on the safety of journalists but what I think is most important is that politicians must be behind journalist protecting their work and thus the people's right to know.”

That leaves the question: what if it's governments, such as in Hungary, who are targeting, and not protecting journalists and trying to prevent people from having the right to know?