The Council of Europe’s Platform for the protection of journalism and the safety of journalists is marking its tenth anniversary today.
Since its launch on 2 April 2015 as a result of a partnership between the Council of Europe and media freedom organisations and associations of journalists, the platform has published 2,025 alerts on serious threats to media freedom, with a particular focus on the safety of journalists, in Council of Europe member states, the Russian Federation and Belarus.
Serious threats reported in the platform include physical violence and intimidation against journalists, detention and imprisonment, abusive litigation, impunity of crimes against journalists, restrictive media legislation, digital surveillance, attacks on the independence of public service media and media capture.
Alerts are submitted by the partner organisations and are notified to the national authorities, who are invited to reply, detailing preventive, protective or remedial action taken to address the threat. As of 1 April 2025, 1,622 alerts remain active, while 403 have been resolved because the threat has ceased to exist or has been remedied. A total of 735 alerts remain without a response from the states concerned.
Since 2015, 500 alerts have been related to attacks on the physical safety and integrity of journalists – including the deaths of 53 journalists or media professionals. 579 alerts concerned harassment and intimidation of journalists, 42 impunity cases, 364 detention and imprisonment of journalists, and 540 other acts having chilling effects on media freedom.
The number of alerts has steadily increased, from 106 alerts in 2015 to 219 in 2024. In 2025, 55 alerts have been published so far. 2022 was the year with the highest number of alerts (288). According to the Platform partners, this surge reflected democratic backsliding in certain countries and a deterioration of the overall press freedom climate, which was further aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. After 2022, the number of alerts per year has decreased but has remained above pre-Covid-19 levels.
The 15 Platform’s partner organisations are ARTICLE 19, the Association of European Journalists, Committee to Protect Journalists, the European Broadcasting Union, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists, Free Press Unlimited, Index on Censorship, the International Federation of Journalists, the International News Safety Institute, the International Press Institute, the Justice For Journalists Foundation, Pen International, Reporters Without Borders and the Rory Peck Trust.
