Friday 29 November 2019

Is this the start of justice for Daphne?

A protest this week in Valletta. Photo: Paul Borg Olivier/The Shift

Index has long been reporting on corruption issues in Malta, particularly calling for the end to impunity over the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
This week the case took a new twist with the arrest of Keith Schembri, prime minister Joseph Muscat’s former chief of staff, after allegations that he was a co-conspirator in the 2017 car bombing.
Index tweeted: “Hopefully we are now seeing #JusticeforDaphne”; expressed our pride in the tireless – and dangerous – work done by Caroline Muscat of Malta’s @TheShiftNews; and retweeted calls to join a protest calling for the resignation of the prime minister.
At our Hay Festival session earlier this year, a lot of the audience were shocked to discover the darker side of this popular holiday island. You might be, too. Watch the video here.

Monitoring reveals more threats to media freedom

Index's policy research and advocacy officer, Jessica Ní Mhainín, is in Paris this week for a meeting about the findings of media monitoring.

She and other partner organisations for the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists are gathering to discuss the forthcoming annual report.

“2019 has been a busy year for the platform, with 129 alerts having been logged on the system so far," she said. “Interestingly, four of the countries covered by Index’s Media Monitoring project (Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine) accounted for as many as 49 of those alerts.
“This is part of a continuing disturbing trend of threats to media freedom in these countries, something that we continue to report on."

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Spreading the word to students

Index editorial assistant, Orna Herr, this year's Tim Hetherington fellow, returned to Liverpool John Moores University, this week to speak to journalism students about her work at Index.
Index partners with LJMU to offer the one-year fellowship working with the editorial team to a journalism graduate each year, and Herr spoke to students keen to follow in her footsteps next September.

Index on Censorship defends people's freedom to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution. We publish censored writers and artists, monitor and campaign against censorship, and encourage debate.

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