In Europe, we supported organisations working on pressing media freedom issues. Our partners the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland (HFHR), Ossigeno per l’Informazione in Italy, and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) in Hungary worked on a wide range of key threats, including SLAPPs and spywares, such as Pegasus.

We also support the efforts of Human Rights Platform (HRP) in Ukraine so that they can continue to provide journalists with much needed legal defence. This area of work has proved crucial given the ongoing war.

In Turkey, the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) and the Foundation for Society and Legal Studies (TOHAV) continued to defend journalists accused of incitement to terrorism, criminal defamation or anti-State rhetoric for their reporting critical of the government.

In Latin America, we collaborate with the Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP) in Colombia, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji), Propuesta Cívica in Mexico, and the Red Centroamericana de Periodistas who all provide support to journalists subjected to physical attacks and legal threats — work that remains critical given the risks in the region.

We also partner with Le Collectif des Associations Contre l’Impunité au Togo (CACIT) in Togo and Campaign for Free Expression (CFE) in South Africa. These organisations provide legal assistance in court and undertake precedent-setting legal action on press freedom cases.

We strengthened our work in Asia. We support the Media Policy Institute (Kyrgyzstan), Legal Aid for Cambodia (Cambodia) and Digital Rights Nepal (DRN).

In addition, we support three other partner organisations who must remain anonymous for security reasons.

In 2025 – a year with very challenging funding landscape -, we awarded over £350,000 in grants to 19 partner organisations to support the operation of media defence centres across Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa — strengthening legal protection for journalists worldwide.

We also held two partner convenings in Southeast Asia and Europe, providing continued support to our grant holder partners, facilitating collaboration and knowledge exchange.

Partner organisations have continued to deliver crucial support to journalists.

Partner organisations reported in 2025 that as a result of funding received from Media Defence, they were able to support an increased number of journalists and media outlets. Furthermore, the grants also enabled our partners to provide legal assistance in more complex and strategic legal cases.

• Media Defence financial and legal support has enabled our partners to litigate 427 cases across a range of freedom of expression issues, nationally and internationally.
• 12 partners reported handling cases that set a positive precedent for journalists and media outlets in their country.
• 10 partners reported working on cases that had positive rationes decidendi or obiter dicta handed down in their judgment documents. This means judges made important positive statements or decisions that could help strengthen future legal protections for journalists and human rights defenders.
• 4 partners reported working on cases that had negative binding rationes decidendi or obiter dicta handed down in their judgment documents. In other words, some courts issued decisions or remarks that could be used to justify restrictions on rights in future cases, making legal defence efforts more challenging.

Partner organisations have enhanced their operational capacity.

For some of our partners, following their loss of USAID funding, the grant received from Media Defence became vital in sustaining their organisations and continuing their operation in 2025. Media Defence grants were indicated to have contributed to building our partners’ institutional resilience.

Media Defence’s support has also strengthened other operational capacity areas, such as fundraising. Partner organisations also reported improvements in internal processes that led to increased effectiveness in providing legal support.

Partner organisations have improved their legal capacity.

By engaging in new legal cases and support to journalists – including in new geographical areas in some cases -, our partner organisations’ legal capacities have been further strengthened. In particular, partners reported improved capacity in the areas of strategic litigation, legal research, media law and legal advocacy.

Partner organisations have strengthened their networks and built new partnerships.

Partner organisations reported that Media Defence grants enabled them to strengthen their networks and build new partnerships with journalists, lawyers and civil society organisations on national, regional and international level.

Several partner organisations highlighted that the grants contributed to their organisations gaining increased trust and credibility as legal defence organisations and long-term partners for journalists and media outlets.

To be able to provide continued, essential support to journalists, our partners have stressed the importance of long-term, continuous funding. Partner organisations have also highlighted the importance of access to peer exchanges and knowledge sharing in particular around emerging challenges.

We thank all of our partners for the collaboration. Media Defence is committed to continued cooperation with and support to our partners.

You can also read more about the work of Media Defence in our 2025 Annual report.