Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias will today participate in the World Press Freedom Conference, which is being hosted by the Netherlands, in The Hague, in collaboration with the United Nations.
According to a statement by the Foreign Ministry, the Conference, which will also be attended by academics and representatives of the news media and organizations from all over the world, will focus on the security and freedom of journalists.
The conference comes at a crucial time where EU and Turkish relations are in crisis over variety of issues including human rights and press freedom violations.
Turkey is one of the lowest ranked countries for media freedoms in the world, is the second most susceptible country surveyed on the European continent to fake news, has the most journalists jailed in the whole world, and 90% of media is government controlled.
In October this year 11 organizations, including Human Rights Watch, issued a statement following their visit to Turkey on October 6-9, 2020 to meet with journalists, officials, and others to assess the conditions for media freedom in Turkey.
In their statement they concluded that ‘’Turkey’s press freedom crisis is worsening amid growing state capture of media, the lack of independence of regulatory institutions, and a new social media law designed to clamp down on the remaining spaces for free comment.”
They also flagged the continued jailing and prosecution of journalists as well as ongoing concerns over the safety of journalists and judicial independence.
World Press Freedom conference
The World Press Freedom Conference 2020 (WPFC) uniquely gathers journalists, media companies, human rights defenders, members of the judiciary, policymakers, academics, youth, NGOs and everyone who is interested in press freedom worldwide.
