O'Connell: Pressure on Journalists Is Unacceptable

Ruairi O'Connell speaks of the necessity of journalism for democracy, meanwhile, citing the situation in Kosovo, stressing cases of threats against Serbian and Albanian journalists.

This year we have preemptive threats against Serbian journalists in Kosovo, labeling them traitor, we have seen physical attacks on Albanian journalists, we have seen political parties, governments, pressuring companies not to advertise into a medium. These are all the unacceptable pressure games for journalists, and they're representing a vital threat to media freedom”, O'Connell says.

The British ambassador to Kosovo says it is very important that any democratic country do its utmost to protect journalists, but that citizens should also protect media freedom.

“It is very important to hear journalists' criticism because they know better the circumstances in which they work, if we use the index for free world media, we can see that Kosovo ranks daily in 70-80. That means it's not a very comfortable situation, it's not very nice”, he says.

O'Connell adds that the year 2018 has been dangerous for journalists in the world, while orders should be responded to in cases of threats to protect media freedom.

We remember that taking the risk for journalists, British and Canadian Foreign Secretary of State has decided to establish a global campaign to promote media freedom.

This year's World Media Freedom Conference is held in London, and at the turn of this campaign, media freedom has been discussed in Kosovo, in an organisation of the British Embassy, where Albanian and foreign journalists have related experiences from their work.