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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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Juan Pablo Barrientos: Challenging the Catholic Church’s secrecy on sexual abuse in Colombia
Juan Pablo Barrientos In 2016, journalist Juan Pablo Barrientos became inspired by the story of the Boston Globe’s investigative unit, Spotlight. Back in 2001, Spotlight had conducted a deep investigation into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Massachusetts, leading to further investigations in different parts of the world. Barrientos decided to perform the same…
A Year in Review: Our 2021 Annual Report
The report Media Defence has launched its 2021 annual report, marking the end of a pivotal year for freedom of expression. The year 2021 presented us with unprecedented challenges. In response to their work, journalists faced abusive lawsuits, smear campaigns and an increasingly unsafe environment, both online and off. Over the last couple of years,…
Rubens Valente vs Brazil: The Risk of Reporting on Public Officials
Media Defence, Abraji, RFK Human Rights and Cesar Klouri have filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of Brazilian journalist Rubens Valente. The petitioners are asking the Commission to assess whether the outcome of the case against Valente before Brazil’s Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal, STF) violated his rights…
Media Defence and EFF intervene in Sanchez v France
Media Defence and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have intervened in a case at the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR, which concerns online users being held liable for third party comments. In Sanchez v France a French politician was charged with incitement to hatred on religious grounds following comments posted on the ‘wall’ of his Facebook account…
We are recruiting for a Trustee – Finance Specialist
Media Defence is recruiting a new trustee. The Board of Trustees is jointly and severally responsible for the overall governance and strategic direction of Media Defence, and for its financial health. It is the responsibility of the trustees to further the organisation whilst keeping within its charitable objectives. To supplement the range of skills and…
Call for Consultants: Independent evaluation of our ICNL sub-grant
Media Defence is looking to hire a consultant to conduct an independent evaluation of our work. We are acting as a sub-grantee as part of ICNL’s ‘Countering Authoritarianism through Civil Society Empowerment in the Indo-Pacific' project (CAIP). The aim of the project is to empower civil society to respond to authoritarian measures enacted by governments…