OSCE Ministerial 2025: states back journalist safety
France delivered a joint statement, in French, at the 2025 OSCE Ministerial Council, with the UK Government publishing the English translation. Speaking for the Informal Group of Friends on the Safety of Journalists, it named Austria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and France.
If you teach or study media, it helps to remember why this sits in a security forum at all. The OSCE treats security broadly: when people can ask hard questions, share verified facts and hold power to account, societies are more stable. That is the thread running through the statement.
The message is straightforward: free, independent and plural media strengthens democracy, builds transparency and accountability, helps prevent war, supports resilience and upholds human rights. Journalists and media workers must be able to do their jobs without censorship, intimidation or violence so the public can seek, receive and share information.
For those learning the building blocks, three OSCE commitments are highlighted: the Helsinki Final Act, the Copenhagen Document and Ministerial Council Decision 3/18 on the Safety of Journalists. Together they require states to protect freedom of expression, promote media pluralism, improve journalist safety, end impunity for crimes against journalists and stop using laws or courts to silence independent reporting.
But there is a gap between promise and practice. The statement warns that, in several participating states, justice systems are being turned against reporters while attacks on them go unpunished. It urges governments not to normalise this risk and not to misuse national security laws to shut down independent media.
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is a central concern. Since the full‑scale invasion began, journalists have been killed, arbitrarily detained, tortured or forcibly disappeared, and credible reports say media infrastructure and workers have been directly targeted. Under international humanitarian law, journalists are civilians and must be protected; intentionally targeting civilians or using indiscriminate force may constitute grave violations and even war crimes. The signatories call on the Russian Federation to release all media professionals imprisoned for their work, including in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.
Inside Russia and in Belarus, the statement describes a repressive environment in which independent media no longer operates freely. Authorities have expanded and misused so‑called anti‑extremism and anti‑terrorism laws to punish legitimate expression, assembly and association, while state‑sponsored disinformation, censorship and foreign information manipulation and interference further erode media freedom.
The trend reaches more widely. The text cites arrests, prosecutions and convictions of journalists in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan. In Turkmenistan the space for independent journalism is described as very limited. Georgia, once a regional leader, is flagged for harassment, intimidation, restrictive legislation, court action and arbitrary detentions of media actors.
Beyond courtrooms, hostility on the street has grown. The statement notes weak protection from security officials and reports of cases where law enforcement officers themselves attacked journalists, seized or destroyed equipment and carried out arbitrary detentions. Students can read this as a real‑world test of how rights should be protected in public space.
So who acts when standards are breached? Within the OSCE, the Representative on Freedom of the Media has an early‑warning role, can respond quickly to serious violations and helps states improve their media laws and practices. The statement urges participating states to support this mandate fully.
Women journalists receive specific attention because of gender‑based online abuse. This year marks ten years of the Safety of Female Journalists Online (SOFJO) project. The office’s tools include the SOFJO Resource Guide, the Guidelines for Monitoring Online Violence Against Female Journalists and tailored capacity‑building programmes aimed at different stakeholders to make digital spaces safer.
If you are teaching this, invite learners to annotate the verbs in the text-protect, investigate, prosecute, release-and match them to the obligations above. Encourage clear definitions of impunity, arbitrary detention and temporarily occupied territories, and ask how security laws can be written and applied so they address real threats without silencing reporting.
The closing ask to ministers and delegates is practical. Media freedom and the safety of journalists are presented not as optional extras but as part of sustainable security across the OSCE region. The states call for full implementation of existing commitments, stronger institutional safeguards for independent journalism and support for the OSCE media freedom office to do its work.