Informed 11


Safety convention bid wins congress support


ending the gender pay gap were passed. Congress called on the new IFJ executive commitee to raise awareness of, and build a culture to resist, the surveillance of journalists among IFJ members and to promote technological and organisational approaches to avoid it. Te NUJ’s Jim Boumelha was


reconfirmed as the IFJ’s honorary treasurer and former NUJ president, Barry McCall, was re-elected to the IFJ Finance Commission. Dr Carmen Draghici, senior lecturer in


IFJ Congress march for those killed


Support for the International Federation of Journalists’ campaign for a UN Convention on the Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals is growing and won further endorsement at the organisation’s World Congress held in Tunis in June. Te IFJ reported that 95 media


professionals were killed in 2018, yet in nine of 10 cases the killers remained unpunished. Conference delegates held a march through the streets on Tunis in memory of dead colleagues, including Ireland’s Lyra McKee and Malta’s Daphne Caruana Galizia. Delegates also agreed on a new IFJ Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists as a standard of professional conduct “for journalists engaged in gathering, transmiting, disseminating and commenting on news and information in describing events”.


National Union of Journalists’ motions about surveillance of journalists and


law, City, University of London, draſted the proposed convention. She explained during an event in London to mark World Press Freedom Day that it would enshrine safeguards and rights for journalists in international law, including protection of sources and an end to the impunity of killers of journalists. Kasra Naji, senior correspondent with the World Service’s BBC Persian channel, showed a new video on the intimidation inflicted on his colleagues by the Iranian authorities. Te service – on TV, radio and online


– provided news and entertainment to Persian speakers around the globe, he said. Te TV channel has 12m regular viewers hungry for impartial reliable news. “We will not be silenced,” he pointed out. Michelle Stanistreet described her visit as part of a TUC women’s delegation to Jerusalem, Hebron, Jenin, Bethlehem and Ramallah and meeting colleagues from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate whose members frequently face violence from Israeli forces. Te trip took place immediately aſter the funeral of Lyra McKee, which she described as the “most surreal, upseting and inspiring duty I’ve carried out as a general secretary of the NUJ”.


and harassment on social media platforms. One of the main techniques is through the spread of fake images online, and false information accusing us of sexual indecency, to discredit us with our families and the broader public. In one example, a fake Photoshopped pornographic image of a female presenter was sent to her 14- year-old son at his school in London.”


Ayşe released Jailed Turkish journalist, Ayşe Düzkan, focus of NUJ campaigns, has been released six months into her 18-month sentence for puting her name to a pro-Kurdish rights newspaper. She now has to do four hours’ unpaid community service daily. She told NUJ Informed: “Food is bad in jail but, then, you don’t have to cook. I had so much time to read and chated with myself. I did get bored and depressed but the best thing is that you are not afraid of going into prison because you are already there!” Ayşe thanked NUJ members for their support. More than 100 journalists and media workers remain in Turkish jails. Te NEC has agreed to “adopt” another jailed Turkish journalist.


Women atacked Anahita Shams (pictured), a BBC Persian reporter, has addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on the systematic targeting of World Service women journalists by Iranian authorities. She said: “My female colleagues and I have been consistently atacked online, with concerted sexual defamation


IFJ


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