Media freedom in Europe is deteriorating. In eg. Russia, violence against journalists is flourishing and in the past three years, seven russian journalists have been murdered. But the situation is not only critical in eastern countries like Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Belarus. Western european countries like France and Italy see new declines, mainly in the shape of restrictions and political pressure.
This is reported by Mats Johansson, Chairman of Stockholm Free World Forum and the Rapporteur on Media Freedom for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and William Horsley, Media Freedom Representative of the Association of European Journalists in an article published by Project Syndicate. The article is based on a report by Horsley that recently was presented to the Council of Europe. The article has been published in Swedish by Swedens leading daily news paper, Dagens Nyheter.