OSCE states urge protection for journalists in war
On World Press Freedom Day 2026, Finland delivered a joint statement to the OSCE on behalf of the Informal Group of Friends on the Safety of Journalists, including the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Canada and the Netherlands, with many other states aligning afterwards. The message was plain and urgent: when journalists are attacked in conflict, the public loses information it may need to survive. This year’s theme was Shaping a Future at Peace. That helps explain why this was not framed as a niche media issue. The statement treated press freedom as something much bigger: part of how societies understand war, protect civilians and hold power to account when violence makes truth harder to reach.
The UK government text argued that a free, independent and pluralistic media supports both national and global security. In conflict, accurate and timely reporting can warn communities about danger, help people make safer decisions and record what is happening before lies settle in. It can also strengthen information integrity, challenge propaganda and give space to voices that are often pushed out of peace efforts. **What this means:** press freedom is not something you save for calmer times. If reporters cannot work safely during war, people are left with rumour, fear and whoever shouts loudest.
One of the starkest facts in the statement came from the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ says 129 journalists and media workers were killed in 2025, making it the deadliest year since the organisation began collecting this data more than 30 years ago. That tells you the danger is not abstract. It is measurable, and it is getting worse. The statement also reminded states that journalists covering conflict are protected under international humanitarian law, and that UN Security Council Resolution 2222 recognised those protections in 2015. But the gap between law and reality is now painfully clear. A jacket marked PRESS, once seen as a shield, can instead make someone a target.
The statement was especially direct about Ukraine. It said Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable war of aggression has led to journalists being killed or subjected to arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearance while carrying out their work. It also said media infrastructure and media workers have become direct targets of Russian attacks. The countries behind the statement called on Russia to release all media actors imprisoned because of their professional activities, including those held in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. For us as readers, that is an important reminder that attacks on journalists are also attacks on the public record. If local reporters are silenced, evidence disappears with them.
The warning did not stop at the battlefield. The statement said that in Russia and Belarus, media actors have been harassed, attacked and imprisoned on politically motivated charges, often using so-called anti-extremism and anti-terrorism laws. It added that, in some cases, even the audience is criminalised for trying to access independent information. That matters because censorship does not only punish the person who publishes. It also frightens the person who reads, watches or shares. Once people fear information itself, public debate shrinks very quickly.
Another part of the statement will feel familiar to many younger readers. Journalists now face growing online abuse, especially women, while media organisations are also dealing with state censorship, financial pressure, rising disinformation and the problems created by new technology, including AI. These pressures may look different from bombs or prison cells, but they can still stop reporting from reaching the public. The argument here is worth sitting with. A weaker press does not simply mean fewer stories in your feed. It means a public that is easier to mislead. The statement warned that global media freedom is under its most sustained attack in decades, just when reliable reporting is most needed.
If you do not follow the OSCE closely, it helps to know why this forum matters. It is a body where states discuss security, rights and conflict, so a statement like this is meant to do two things at once: describe the problem and set a public standard. The countries behind the text said they remain deeply concerned about the erosion of media freedom across other parts of the OSCE region as well. They also pledged support for the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the office that tracks threats to media freedom and presses governments to answer for them. **What this means:** international bodies cannot by themselves keep every journalist safe, but they can name abuses, build pressure and make it harder for states to pretend these attacks are invisible.
The closing appeal was clear. States should support free and independent media as part of building peace, protect those reporting on conflict, and work to end impunity for crimes against journalists across the OSCE region and worldwide. That last point matters because when attacks go unpunished, more attacks usually follow. For Common Room readers, the bigger lesson is simple. Press freedom is not only about newspapers, broadcasters or social media posts. It is about whether ordinary people can learn what is being done in their name, what is happening to civilians, and where power is trying to hide the truth. When that chain of truth breaks, peace becomes harder to reach and harder to keep.