18 Amendments of Sabrina PIGNEDOLI related to 2022/2057(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 4
Citation 4
— having regard to the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression of 13 April 2021 on disinformation and freedom of opinion and expression and that of April 2022 titled "Reinforcing media freedom and the safety of journalists in the digital age",
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas the decline of media freedom and the rise in threats to the safety of journalists is a worldwide trend, most sharply evident in backsliding democracies and recalcitrant totalitarian States; whereas recent years have shown a growing pattern of intimidation aimed at silencing journalists, in particular war correspondents; whereas thise consequences for human rights, democracy, public participation and development are extremely concening and it is a situation that requires urgent action to uphold the essential role of the independent media in ensuring transparency and accountability;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas recent years have shown a growing pattern of intimidation aimed at silencing journalists, in particular war correspondents; whereas by gathering and disseminating reliable information about armed conflicts, journalists carry out a crucial mission of public interest; whereas this is a situation that requires urgent action to uphold the essential role of the independent media in ensuring transparency and accountability;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas investigative journalists working to expose corruption are being particularly targeted; nd in the fight against organized crime are being particularly targeted; whereas whistleblowers are a key source of information in the fight against corruption and organized crime; whereas Julian Assange’s case sets a dangerous precedent regarding whistleblowing as a fundamental aspect of freedom of expression and as an essential role in detecting and reporting wrongdoing;
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G a (new)
Recital G a (new)
G a. whereas international human rights law provides strong protection for whistle-blowers, journalistic sources and public interest reporting; whereas, according to the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression of 20 April 2022 on disinformation and freedom of opinion and expression, the continuing efforts of the United States to prosecute Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, raise concerns that the Espionage Act charges could establish a precedent for punishing not only whistle-blowers but also journalists, without considering whether their reporting is in the public interest;
Amendment 44 #
H. whereas technological innovation has increased the capacity of individuals, governments and other bodies to spy on journalists, compromise their digital security and force censorship upon them; whereas such attacks may include compromising journalists’ accounts, locking them out of their accounts, subjecting them to intrusive malware, targeting them with hateful and violent content and gathering and publishing personal information about them online; whereas targeted surveillance and digital threatsof journalists and the use of spyware against them, as well as other and digital threats, impacts journalists in a very personal way violating their right to privacy, right to freedom of expression, and freedom of thought, impairs journalists’, activists’ and politicians’ right to freedom of association and are having a negative impact on press freedom worldwide and, limiting journalists’ ability to investigate and report; whereas the United Nations' General Assembly and Human Rights Council have affirmed that the rights protecting the free and safe practice of journalism offline also apply online; whereas the overriding problem is not one of gaps in international law but of failures in compliance and implementation by Member States rooted in a lack of political will;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital S a (new)
Recital S a (new)
S a. whereas the 2018 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) report on Women Journalists and Freedom of Expression states that the discrimination faced by journalists is often manifested in relation to their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, belief, age, class, and sexual orientation or gender identity; whereas LGBTIQ+ journalists are at a higher risk of online attacks; whereas online attacks frequently exacerbate offline safety threats; whereas these threats may lead to self-censor and have a chilling effect on press freedom and freedom of expression;
Amendment 103 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Recalls the essential role played by political and investigative journalists in fighting against human rights violations by performing their role as watchdogs for democracy and the rule of law through the collection of reliable and relevant information, thereby exposing state repression, corruption, criminal networks, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and all kind of human rights abuses, which ensurescontributes to the necessary checks and balances to hold persons in power to account; highlights, and deplores, the fact that these activities put journalists at increased personal risk;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3 a. Regrets the British Home Secretary decision to extradite Julian Assange to the US, where he could be sentenced to 175 years in prison from 17 charges related to the Espionage Act Extradition and condemns the pressure applied by the United States in relation to the extradition of a whistleblower;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3 b. Notes with concern that according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 67 journalists have been killed worldwide in 2022, in addition to those who have been threatened, subjected to violence or arbitrary imprisonment; reiterates the importance of these crimes being fully investigated and those responsible brought to justice; calls on all the European institutions to commit themselves by means of concrete acts and declarations sto avoid at all cost impunity for these crimes;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Reiterates its continued deep concern about the state of media freedom in the word in the context of the abuses and attacks still being perpetrated against journalists and media workers in many countries, as well as the growing denigration of them in public, which particularly impacts political, investigative and cross-border journalism; notes with concern and stigmatises the practice of some authorities of searching the homes and workplaces of journalists or subjecting them to telephone and digital device checks in order to trace the sources of information, which must be protected in the same way as the journalists themselves;
Amendment 116 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4 a. Regrets the widespread online abuse and the censorship of LGBTQI+ stories and voices in many countries, including Azerbaijan, Hungary, Poland, and Russia, resulting in infringements of journalists’ right to freedom of expression;
Amendment 118 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Reiterates its concern about the lack of specific legal or policy frameworks protecting journalists and media workers from violence, threats and intimidation at global scale; calls on public figures and authority representatives to refrain from denigrating journalists in public, as this undermines trust in the media across society; underlines the important role of journalists in reporting on protests and demonstrations and calls for them to be protected so that they can carry out their jobs without fear; is concerned at the increased restictions and reprisal to crush public protests in Russia, and in particular the anti-war movement since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which extends to suppressing any reporting of them by journalists and independent monitors;
Amendment 126 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Deplores the fact that journalists and media workers often work in precarious conditions, which compromises their ability to work in a safe and enabling environment; deplores the increasingly widespread practice of precarious, underpaid employment contracts with no health nor legal protection, stressing that this condition has serious repercussions on the actual independence of journalists; stresses that adequate working conditions for journalists and media workers are crucial to fostering high-quality journalism, allowing journalists to fulfil their missions and upholding the right to information and the right to be informed;
Amendment 142 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)
Paragraph 9 a (new)
9 a. Highlights that it is often thanks to journalists that serious human rights violations, war crimes, and other atrocities taking places in the context of armed conflicts are brought to the attention of the public and of decision makers; condemned in the strongest possible terms deliberate attacks, kidnapping and torture of journalists reporting on conflicts, as well as failure to protect and them; calls for effective investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for crimes against journalists, including supporting the starting of ICC invistigation on the killing of Palestinian- American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on May 11, 2022, while covering an IDF raid in the West Bank town of Jenin and wearing a protective vest that read “press” on the front and back;
Amendment 160 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Insists on enhancing collaboration between online platforms and law enforcement authorities so as to effectively address the spread of messages that incite hatred or instigate violence towards journalists and media workers, taking into account the fact that womendiscrimination faced by journalists is often manifested in relation to their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, belief, age, class, and sexual orientation or gender identity and some categories, such as women, LGBTIQ+ persons, ethnic or regligious minorities, are particularly targeted; stresses the importance of promptly removing online comments or reactions that undermine the safety of journalists in order to curb their uncontrolled spread;
Amendment 182 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18 a. Urges the EU to call for an immediate moratorium on the development, export, sale and use of spyware until robust regulations are implemented to guarantee its use in line with international human rights standards and to safeguard journalists; where governments continue to engage in the use or sale of this technology, call for public reporting and consultation about spyware purchases and exports; consider the use of targeted actions to hold accountable those who have spied or facilitated spying on journalists through the sale or use of spyware, and to deter future spying;
Amendment 186 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Calls on EU delegations, EU Member State diplomatic missions and like-minded partners to engage in proactive outreach to and support for civil society, media outlets and journalist communities in third countries with a view to supporting their work and working conditions, to make regular assessments of the press freedom environment in each respective third country, including ongoing or emerging risks to journalists, and to seek ways to put in place either measures that could prevent abuses from occurring or protection measures, including providing demonstrable and visible moral support to journalists at risk;