"Journalism has become one of most dangerous occupations"

"Journalism has become one of most dangerous occupations"

"I would especially like to highlight my engagement at the highest level with five of the countries in the South East Europe region. These visits enriched my cooperation with governments, the media community and resulted in progress on a number of issues including steps to reform public broadcasting, strengthen regulatory agencies, develop a media strategy in Serbia, and support media self-regulation," he said.

Speaking about the challenges facing the media at the global level, he cited further arrests of journalists, banning of newspapers, blocking of news websites, increasing restrictions on access to the Internet, new attacks on journalists and murders.

"In the past year, what was unthinkable became a daily occurrence for newsrooms, and we cannot accept that. Being a journalist today has become one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. I do not mean war reporting, but the very fact that you are a reporter, that you are investigating, publishing, commenting on issues of public importance, political, economic security topics, corruption, or even if you are just a cartoonist," he said.

He warned that such an atmosphere is dangerous and that the media, as a fragile institution of democracy, are even more endangered now when "the winds of extremism, populism and violence are blowing, spurred via social networks from anonymous accounts, or ones behind which are groups of fanatics."

"I am asking today from participating states to treat death threats to journalists, including those addressed on the internet, are treated with utmost vigilance in order to be the subject of systematic investigations, and their perpetrators identified, prosecuted and severely condemned," Desir said.

He pointed out that, despite numerous hurdles and threats, journalists refuse to surrender and bravely carry out the essential tasks of democracy, but stresses that the courage of journalists is not enough and that states are responsible for protecting the media at this time when the danger has increased.

"You can criticize the media, you can disagree with them, you can even not like them - but it is the duty of a democracy to accept, respect and protect the diversity and freedom of all voices," he said.

Desir also said that under the auspices of the Safety of Female Journalists Online project (known as SOFJO), his office was currently working on a large scale research project to identify solutions and collect data on policies that better protect journalists.

"We are also working on a full length documentary to show, through the lives of journalists living and working in the OSCE region, the horrific scope and scale of online harassment. The documentary will be screened this December, here in Vienna," he said.

"I will continue to call out threats, abuse and harassment of the media wherever and whenever they occur," Desir said.