Back Free Press Unlimited and European Centre for Press and Media Freedom join Council of Europe Platform

Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists now includes 14 partners
Free Press Unlimited and European Centre for Press and Media Freedom join Council of Europe Platform

Free Press Unlimited and European Centre for Press and Media Freedom today became partners of the Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists, through which organisations promoting media freedom inform the Council of Europe about serious concerns about the safety of journalists and alleged attacks to media freedom.

Ruth Kronenburg, Director of Operations at Free Press Unlimited, and Lutz Kinkel, Managing Director of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, signed the agreement to join the platform during a meeting with the Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland.

The two new partners join another 12 organisations and institutions already active in the platform: Article 19, the Association of European Journalists, Committee to Protect Journalists, the European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists, Index on Censorship, the International Federation of Journalists, the International News Safety Institute, the International Press Institute, Pen International, Reporters Without Borders and the Rory Peck Trust.

Their last media freedom report provides a disturbing picture of the worsening general environment for the media across Europe: the number of attacks on journalists has grown continuously, reported threats doubled last year and there has been no progress in a number of long-standing cases of impunity for murder of journalists.

In 2019, the partners have so far published 94 alerts concerning 21 countries, two of them referring to the killing of journalists. Since April 2015, when the platform was launched, the partner organisations have published 604 alerts concerning 39 Council of Europe member states. They refer to physical attacks on journalists, including murder, the detention and imprisonment of journalists, impunity, harassment or intimidation of journalists, and other acts that have a chilling effect on media freedom.

Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalist Strasbourg 11 September 2019
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Fifty practitioners to enhance skills in provision of occupational therapy

Following the adoption of the Guidelines for Occupational Therapy (OT), as well as the Training of Trainers (ToT) on OT that took place in January 2024, three 2-day cascade training sessions were organised in the course of February and March 2024.  Fifty professionals, mainly from the Prison Health Department, along with representatives from the Correctional Services, Institute for Forensic Psychiatry, and the Special Institute for Persons with Mental and Physical Disabilities, were trained on this important form of therapy.

To complement the theoretical aspects and provide the trainees with practical knowledge, some of the sessions were conducted in the Dubrava Prison, in a section which houses prisoners with both mental and somatic problems. This on-site training allowed the participants to observe and understand the application of OT principles in a real-life setting, thus enhancing their learning experience by connecting theory and practice.

These cascade training sessions allowed the participants to further improve their skills in applying the OT Guidelines and tools in prisons and other closed institutions, a concept which was thus far not utilised in a structured manner. Furthermore, training healthcare and correctional professionals together helps them further strengthen the inter-institutional cooperation in the treatment and rehabilitation of some of the most vulnerable members of the society.

Each of these sessions were facilitated by two trainers who had participated in the ToT in January and were supervised and mentored by a Council of Europe consultant who has been involved in the process since the very beginning, thus further strengthening institutional capacity to provide training.

The activity was conducted under the auspices of the Council of Europe project “Improvement of the treatment of persons deprived of liberty”.

 

 

*All references to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions, or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United National Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.

Istog/ Istok 26 March 2024
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