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Sunday, June 28
Global Free Speech

Journalists from the state broadcaster RTK will meet members of the mission. Photo: Arianselmani From 24 to 25 March 2026, partner organisations of the Council of Europe Platform on the Safety of Journalists and other organisations will conduct a two-day fact-finding mission to Prishtina, Kosovo. The purpose of the mission is to assess the challenges to media freedom in the country and to discuss the possible solutions with media stakeholders and authorities. During the mission, the delegation will address political pressure on the media; the safety of journalists; journalists’ working conditions; legislation, including the media law and proposed amendments; the public broadcaster and the Independent Media Commission; journalists’ access to public information; legal threats, including abusive lawsuits (SLAPPs) and proposals to re-criminalise defamation; and the transposition and application of the European anti-SLAPP Directive, the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), and the Digital Services Act (DSA). Prime Minister Albin Kurti has confirmed a meeting with the delegation. The delegation will also meet editors and journalists, members of the parliamentary media committee, judicial authorities, police representatives, regulatory bodies, and representatives of the public broadcaster. Following the two-day mission, the partners will present their initial findings at a press conference in Prishtina on 25 March 2026 and will subsequently publish a report on media freedom alongside a set of recommendations. The report will be shared with relevant national and international organisations. A similar fact-finding mission to Kosovo was organised by the Platform in 2022. The mission is supported by the Association of Journalists of Kosovo. Participating organisations European Centre for Press and Media Freedom ⁠European Federation of Journalists ⁠Reporters Without Borders ⁠International Press Institute ⁠Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa ⁠Association of European Journalists ⁠Index on Censorship READ MORE

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Journalists from the state broadcaster RTK will meet members of the mission. Photo: Arianselmani From 24 to 25 March 2026, partner organisations of the Council of Europe Platform on the Safety of Journalists and other organisations will conduct a two-day fact-finding mission to Prishtina, Kosovo. The purpose of the mission is to assess the challenges to media freedom in the country and to discuss the possible solutions with media stakeholders and authorities. During the mission, the delegation will address political pressure on the media; the safety of journalists; journalists’ working conditions; legislation, including the media law and proposed amendments; the public broadcaster and the Independent Media Commission; journalists’ access to public information; legal threats, including abusive lawsuits (SLAPPs) and proposals to re-criminalise defamation; and the transposition and application of the European anti-SLAPP Directive, the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), and the Digital Services Act (DSA). Prime Minister Albin Kurti has confirmed a meeting with the delegation. The delegation will also meet editors and journalists, members of the parliamentary media committee, judicial authorities, police representatives, regulatory bodies, and representatives of the public broadcaster. Following the two-day mission, the partners will present their initial findings at a press conference in Prishtina on 25 March 2026 and will subsequently publish a report on media freedom alongside a set of recommendations. The report will be shared with relevant national and international organisations. A similar fact-finding mission to Kosovo was organised by the Platform in 2022. The mission is supported by the Association of Journalists of Kosovo. Participating organisations European Centre for Press and Media Freedom ⁠European Federation of Journalists ⁠Reporters Without Borders ⁠International Press Institute ⁠Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa ⁠Association of European Journalists ⁠Index on Censorship READ MORE

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From 24 to 25 March 2026, partner organisations of the Council of Europe Platform on the Safety of Journalists and other organisations will conduct a two-day fact-finding mission to Prishtina, Kosovo. The purpose of the mission is to assess the challenges to media freedom in the country and to discuss the possible solutions with media stakeholders and authorities.

During the mission, the delegation will address political pressure on the media; the safety of journalists; journalists’ working conditions; legislation, including the media law and proposed amendments; the public broadcaster and the Independent Media Commission; journalists’ access to public information; legal threats, including abusive lawsuits (SLAPPs) and proposals to re-criminalise defamation; and the transposition and application of the European anti-SLAPP Directive, the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), and the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Prime Minister Albin Kurti has confirmed a meeting with the delegation. The delegation will also meet editors and journalists, members of the parliamentary media committee, judicial authorities, police representatives, regulatory bodies, and representatives of the public broadcaster.

Following the two-day mission, the partners will present their initial findings at a press conference in Prishtina on 25 March 2026 and will subsequently publish a report on media freedom alongside a set of recommendations. The report will be shared with relevant national and international organisations. A similar fact-finding mission to Kosovo was organised by the Platform in 2022. The mission is supported by the Association of Journalists of Kosovo.

Participating organisations

European Centre for Press and Media Freedom
⁠European Federation of Journalists
⁠Reporters Without Borders
⁠International Press Institute
⁠Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa
⁠Association of European Journalists
⁠Index on Censorship

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Global Free Speech

Photo by: Stephen Barnes/Medical/Alamy UK news this week is dominated by a damning report led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden that reveals how more than 500 mothers and babies were harmed or died at maternity units in Nottingham. This isn’t the first scandal Ockenden has investigated. A few years back terrible failings were revealed in Shropshire hospitals run by the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust where 201 babies and nine mothers died.  We spoke to Ockenden for the magazine and she repeated this: “women aren’t listened to”. Another common thread was cover-up. Secrecy is not a one-off, it’s a pattern, wrote Martin Bright when he reported on the Shropshire scandal for Index. As Bright said, “this is not a historical story; it is an ongoing crisis”. Maternity scandals happen not only in Britain but all over the world. Last year’s protests in Morocco were ignited after eight women died in a maternity ward in Agadir because of severe medical neglect. In Egypt last week Omnia Sweidan, a former resident physician in obstetrics and gynaecology at Alexandria’s El-Shatby University Hospital, wrote a Facebook post detailing a series of abusive incidents faced by women at Alexandria’s Al-Shatby Hospital. It was read and shared by tens of thousands. Within 24 hours of posting, instead of the government declaring an investigation, security forces arrested Sweidan. While she was apparently later released, she’s been accused of spreading false news and misusing social media. She could end up in jail. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world – the figures of deaths and injuries are rising, but to what no one really knows. The Taliban won’t publish the data, probably to cover-up the true numbers. I’ve navigated maternity services myself in the UK. I’ve generally had good experiences and I’m very grateful to the NHS. But my experiences have not been uncomplicated – my daughter very nearly died. What saved her, I’ve been told, were a few factors – my race (white), my class (middle), where I live (London) and the fact that I relentlessly badgered those at my local hospital for weeks on end saying things didn’t feel right. Let me be clear here though: one shouldn’t have to be a dogged white Londoner to get good medical care. And a recent health committee report revealed terrible inequalities faced by people who are members of ethnic minorities, stating that “[B]abies that are Black or Black British Asian or Asian British have a more than 50% higher risk of perinatal mortality”. At Index we typically work on stories where dissidents take on the powerful: leaders, oligarchs and tech bros. The victims of maternity care scandals might not appear the same. But there is much that unites them. At the end of the day if the response you get from a doctor or nurse to a basic medical request is a shrug or a sneer, your free speech is being violated. If the systems view calls for accountability as dissent that must be silenced, then they are censoring. We grew up being told we’re lucky, that childbirth was one of the leading causes of death before the advent of modern medicine. For many of us that’s true. Just not all of us. That’s a travesty demanding urgent attention – in Nottingham and beyond. READ MORE

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