Yesterday on #IWD, we warned that gender-based violence is an increasingly used weapon against women journalists in Europe. In 2025, we documented 53 cases: online abuse, sexual threats, smear campaigns, AI-enabled harassment.
Women journalists must be protected.
https://ow.ly/Z1x650Yr5BV
The MFRR mission to #Italy kicks off today in Rome: https://ow.ly/Y3lf50YqPW8
Over 9–10 March, partners will assess key threats to press freedom, including political interference in RAI, surveillance, legal harassment, media concentration, and anti-SLAPP reform.
On #IWD, we stand with women journalists and demand accountability for gender-based attacks. Do not ignore the violations. Call them out. Protect those at risk. Press freedom can’t exist while women are systematically targeted for doing their jobs.
Attacks don’t stop with the journalist. Female relatives — wives, daughters, sisters, mothers — are also targeted when attackers go after families, often through verbal abuse, including death and rape threats.
In 26% of incidents, women journalists faced intimidation and threats, including 34 cases of death threats.
Verbal assaults made up 51% of recorded incidents against women — far higher than the rate recorded for men journalists (38%).
Mapping Media Freedom recorded 76 physical attacks against women journalists in 2025 — with 27 cases resulting in injuries. Violence is used to punish reporting and to deter others.
In 2025, one woman journalist was killed: war correspondent Aliona Hramova died in Ukraine in a Russian drone strike on 23 October 2025, alongside cameraman Yevhen Karmazin. Journalism remains deadly.
#IWD is a moment to celebrate women journalists, and to name the dangers they face. In 2025, we recorded 438 attacks against women journalists in Europe: www.mapmf.org/explorer?f.e...
Gender-based attacks against women journalists are rising — with 53 gender-based alerts in 2025.
Vladyslav Yesypenko spent more than four years in a Russian prison after being detained by Russia’s FSB in occupied Crimea. In this MFRR interview he recounts staged “evidence” and torture used to force a confession: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JO04XD8Kv8
🔐 Four executives from spyware firm Intellexa convicted by Greek court for illegally surveilling journalist Thanasis Koukakis with #Predator spyware. First-ever criminal conviction of spyware operators targeting a journalist worldwide.
https://ow.ly/OngP50YnU5B
Press freedom in Italy remains under pressure. From attacks and lawsuits to spyware scandals, the risks are real.
The MFRR will be in Rome next week to assess the situation and advocate for concrete reforms: https://ow.ly/9pf350YhZq5
Preliminary findings: 10 March.
🔐 The MFRR consortium is at the European Parliament today for a critical discussion on encryption and press freedom.
Journalist safety depends on it.
Behind every press freedom statistic is a person making daily risk calculations. Join this Voices Festival “Living Stories” session with journalists sharing real experiences of pressure, threats, and resilience: https://ow.ly/azZn50YeZ27
11 March, 12:00.
📸 In Brussels today, MFRR’s Dimitri Bettoni is delivering a media training workshop at the EU Encryption Advocacy Workshop, mapping the EU encryption media landscape, message discipline, and mock interviews to sharpen advocacy narratives.
Encryption protects journalists and sources.
On 9–10 March 2026, the MFRR will carry out a follow-up media freedom mission to Rome: https://ow.ly/JaZW50YhZpN
The delegation will meet public authorities, RAI leadership, journalists’ groups, and civil society to assess reforms and ongoing risks to press freedom in Italy.
⚡ Accountability for journalist surveillance! An Athens court has sentenced four Intellexa executives to prison for deploying #Predator spyware against journalist Thanasis Koukakis.
Justice for journalism.
https://ow.ly/46Ck50YnU4p
Fear should not be part of the job. But for many journalists, it is. At Voices Festival, MFRR partners join a special “Living Stories” session on surveillance, exile, intimidation, and the real human cost of journalism: https://ow.ly/3GK850YeZ0L
11 March, 12:00.
Ukrainian journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko spent more than four years in a Russian prison. “This is not just a system of institutionalised pressure, but an entire system of abuse designed to break people.”
Watch our new MFRR interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JO04XD8Kv8
#Italy: 118 press freedom violations recorded in 2025.
On 9–10 March 2026, the MFRR will conduct a follow-up mission to Rome to assess progress and push for key reforms under the European Media Freedom Act: https://ow.ly/pYkE50YhZp5
Press conference on 10 March.
Our monitoring shows that 2025 was the deadliest year for journalists in Ukraine since Feb–May 2022. Impunity persists. We call for accountability for crimes against the press to be built into broader justice mechanisms for Russia’s war.
https://ow.ly/rV4T50YkSAO
BHRT showing a black screen today is a stark warning. This crisis is driven by long-standing structural funding failures and political deadlock. Public service media are democratic infrastructure. BHRT must not be allowed to disappear.
We stand in solidarity with BHRT.
Our February newsletter is out ⚡
We connect the findings of the MFRR Monitoring Report 2025 to the cases we’re still documenting week by week: intimidation in Serbia, pressure in Georgia, threats in Czechia, harassment in Italy and Spain: https://ow.ly/N5X650YmjOL
Platforma Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) objavila je Godišnji monitoring izveštaj za 2025. godinu, u kojem se navodi da je u prošloj godini zabeležila 1.481 povredu medijskih sloboda, od čega 208 u Srbiji, prenosi UNS.
https://ow.ly/Fulg50YiFG3
What did press freedom look like across Europe in 2025? 🤔
According to our latest Monitoring Report, the mappingmediafreedom.org platform recorded 1,481 violations affecting 2,377 journalists and media-related entities across 36 countries.
Full report: https://www.mfrr.eu/monitoring-report-2025/
From phishing to spyware, digital threats are part of many journalists’ daily reality. At Voices Festival, MFRR partners join Raffaele Angius, Dimitri Bettoni, and Roberta Carlini to discuss surveillance risks and defence strategies: https://ow.ly/6sTE50YeYTR
11 March, 10:00.
Dalla bomba allo spyware, passando per le querele bavaglio: tutto documentato nell’ultimo rapporto di Mfrr, risultato dello sforzo congiunto della European Federation of Journalists, dell’International Press Institute e dell’Ecpmf.
https://ow.ly/57sW50YiFFj
On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of #Ukraine, the MFRR partners hail the continued courage of journalists in the country who continue to report on the war despite serious risks – and waning international attention.
https://ow.ly/ocvI50YkQpa
Two years after our urgent mission, the MFRR is heading back to #Italy.
The March 2026 visit will focus on RAI reform, anti-SLAPP implementation, surveillance threats, and media concentration: https://ow.ly/3MBM50YhZoa
Preliminary findings: 10 March in Rome.
The “foreign agent” label is increasingly used across Europe to discredit independent media. At Voices Festival, MFRR hosts a workshop with Flutura Kusari and Elena Rodina on how these laws spread, and how to resist them: https://ow.ly/r7pU50YeZ53
12 March, 11:30.
