Thank you, Chair.\u00a0Welcome back to the Permanent Council Jan and thank you for your report.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The United Kingdom\u00a0remains\u00a0steadfast in its commitment to media freedom around the world,\u00a0recognising\u00a0the vital role that journalists play in upholding human rights, supporting accountable governance, and protecting democracy. As the Moldovan President Maia Sandu put it, \u201cPeace cannot survive without information integrity, and democracies cannot survive without those who protect it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
No one country has all the answers in the face of a rapidly changing media landscape.\u00a0That is why the UK\u00a0remains\u00a0a strong supporter\u00a0of your mandate\u00a0here at the OSCE.\u00a0The UK is convinced that a well-informed global public is more resilient to disinformation\u00a0and information\u00a0manipulation,\u00a0and\u00a0better equipped to hold power to account.\u00a0That is as true in 2026 as it was in 1975, when our predecessors\u00a0agreed to improve\u00a0cross-border\u00a0access to information and\u00a0journalists\u2019 working conditions\u00a0as part of the negotiations on the Third Basket.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u00a0fully\u00a0agree\u00a0with your assessment that\u00a0media freedom is thus a necessary condition for peace and security, not a peripheral or second order issue. This is particularly\u00a0evident\u00a0in the context of the Russian Federation\u2019s aggression against Ukraine, where the\u00a0information environment \u2013 including the safety of journalists \u2013 has become a central dimension of the conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The UK\u00a0remains\u00a0deeply concerned by the impact of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0UN\u00a0and ODIHR\u00a0reporting documents\u00a0killings, injuries, arbitrary\u00a0detention\u00a0and other serious violations against journalists, as well as sustained attacks on civilian infrastructure essential to the work of independent media.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside\u00a0both\u00a0Russia\u00a0and Belarus,\u00a0systematic and deliberate\u00a0repression aims\u00a0to\u00a0silence dissenting voices, criminalise journalism and\u00a0shut down independent media\u00a0outlets. Such internal repression\u00a0enables external aggression by hollowing out domestic accountability, distorting the information\u00a0environment\u00a0and undermining regional security.\u00a0It therefore\u00a0stands in\u00a0absolute\u00a0contradiction to the principles and commitments agreed by all 57\u00a0OSCE\u00a0participating States.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The UK is also concerned by developments in Azerbaijan,\u00a0Turkey,\u00a0Georgia\u00a0and\u00a0Serbia.\u00a0\u00a0We call on all OSCE participating States to engage with your office and to\u00a0safeguard\u00a0freedom of expression\u00a0as well as free and independent media.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Representative,\u00a0dear Jan, earlier\u00a0this\u00a0year the UK joined Finland as Co-Chair of the Media Freedom Coalition.\u00a0Our priorities as Co-Chair include\u00a0supporting public interest media, technology and media freedom, and the safety of journalists including the specific risks faced by women journalists. We are grateful to you and your team for your\u00a0longstanding\u00a0work on these areas and\u00a0look forward to working\u00a0closely\u00a0with you and your office\u00a0to advance media freedom and hence the shared security of the OSCE region.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thank you Chair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thank you, Chair.\u00a0Welcome back to the Permanent Council Jan and thank you for your report.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The United Kingdom\u00a0remains\u00a0steadfast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-546284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}