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What We Do
Emergency Defence
We fund legal defence for journalists and independent media across the world.
Strategic Litigation
We take on strategic cases to promote and improve media freedom.
Capacity Building
We build local legal capacity to defend journalists through legal training and by funding local legal centres to defend journalists.
What’s new
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International Women’s Day: Celebrating Inspiring Women Journalists and Lawyers
This International Women’s Day, Media Defence wants to celebrate the talented and courageous women who promote freedom of expression around the world, despite the risks they face. According to the Reuters Institute for Journalism, women substantially outnumber men in journalism training, and enter the profession in greater numbers. Despite this, women are under-represented in nearly…
International Women’s Day: Combating Gender-Based Violence Against Journalists
On 25 May 2000, Jineth Bedoya Lima travelled to Colombia’s infamous Modelo prison, intending to follow up a lead. A investigative reporter, Bedoya had received information about arms sales between Colombia’s paramilitary groups and state officials. Before she could enter the prison, however, Bedoya was abducted at gunpoint. She was drugged, beaten and sexually assaulted…
A Year in Review: Our 2020 Learning Report
At Media Defence, we undertake a variety of internal and external evaluations each year in order to understand the effectiveness and relevance of our programmes. We also do this to explore the impact of legal defence for journalists, in an increasingly contracting space for media freedom globally. We are committed to transparency and wish to…
Explaining the Issues: Intermediary Liability
In our Explaining the Issues series, we explain legal issues faced by the media - this instalment covers intermediary liability. What is an internet intermediary? Defining what an ‘intermediary’ is can be challenging, because the term is broad and constantly evolving. The Council of Europe suggests intermediaries are service providers who enable communication to take…
Media Defence Intervenes at Strasbourg Court in ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Case
Media Defence, along with a number of other NGOs, has filed a third-party intervention at the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Biancardi v Italy. The case concerns the application of the ‘right to be forgotten’ to a newspaper article about the commission of a crime. The applicant in the case owned…
Media Defence Files Amicus Curiae Brief in the Case of Jineth Bedoya
Media Defence has filed an amicus curiae brief at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Jineth Bedoya v Colombia. In May 2000, award-winning journalist Jineth Bedoya (who is known for her reporting on the activities of Colombia’s paramilitary groups) visited the infamous Modelo prison in Bogotá to interview a prisoner. While…