VIENNA, 3 May 2021 – On World Press Freedom Day 2021, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM), Teresa Ribeiro, launched today a Communiqué on the freedom of journalists and media outlets to perform their journalistic duties abroad.

The Communiqué elaborates on the longstanding commitments of all OSCE participating States to let media coming from, or having (financial) ties to parties in, other OSCE participating States do their work freely and safely. The communiqué also provides a set of recommendations on this issue.

Recent years have shown a worrying number of cases where media coming from, or having (financial) ties, abroad were hindered in doing their work. These obstructive governmental practices vary from the placing extra administrative requirements on journalists with ties to parties in another country and creating unfavourable – and sometimes even hostile – environment towards these media, to imposing far-fetching (economic) sanctions, or even outright blocking or banning of such media workers and outlets. Though different in operation, these restrictive measures have the same detrimental effect: shrinking of media pluralism and security in the OSCE region and disruption of co-operation and friendly relations between nations.

“Media freedom is dependent on a vibrant and competitive media landscape, with a variety of voices. This includes freedom to perform journalistic duties abroad – something that is also considered crucial for strengthening a climate of trust and co-operation within the OSCE region,” said Ribeiro. “Since journalists and media outlets play a pivotal role in providing information that we all depend on in our democratic societies, it is paramount that they should be able to report, collect and disseminate information regardless of frontiers.”