A Bulgarian investigative reporter has become the third journalist to be murdered in the European Union this year, part of a wider trend that has seen press freedom increasingly under attack across the continent.
Stressing “there is no democracy without a free press”, the European Commission has urged Bulgaria to conduct a rapid investigation into the killing of journalist Viktoria Marinova.
The 30-year-old’s body was found in a park near the Danube river in the norther city of Ruse on Saturday and a preliminary autopsy revealed she had been raped, beaten and suffocated before her body was dumped.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Bulgarian media reports said that over the last year Marinova had been reporting on an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption involving the misuse of EU funds by businesses and local politicians, although “it’s not clear if Marinova's murder was related to her journalistic work”, says CNN.
Bulgaria’s government said there was no evidence the killing was linked to Marinova’s journalism for local television station TVN, “but her death has drawn international condemnation and press freedom campaigners have expressed fears of a cover-up”, says The Independent.
Bulgaria ranked 111 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index this year, “lower than any other EU member” says Reuters.
In October 2017, hundreds of Bulgarian journalists protested in central Sofia over threats from deputy prime minister Valeri Simeonov against the country’s biggest broadcasters.
Drew Sullivan, co-founder of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, said the EU should launch an independent probe into the killing.
He added: “Why do we keep leaving investigations to the very governments who the reporters are investigating when they are killed?”
Marinova is the third investigative journalist from the European Union to have been targeted in less than 12 months.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s best-known investigative reporter, was killed when a bomb blew up her car in October last year and Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak was shot dead in February.
Europe has seen the steepest decline in World Press Freedom Index regional rankings over the past year: Malta is now ranked 65th, down by 18 points, and Slovakia 27th, down by 10.
It is, however, part of a wider global trend, with one journalist killed on average every week around the world, according to figures compiled by Reporters Without Borders.
Most of those killed in 2017 were murdered for their investigations into political corruption and organised crime, according to several media rights groups cited by the BBC.
“In the last six years, it's been an incredibly dangerous time to be a journalist,” says Robert Mahoney the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) deputy executive director. “Many journalists are not killed in conflicts, they are murdered and deliberately targeted for their work.”
Nor is it just non-state actors who are targeting journalists.
“As security – rather than the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms – becomes the number one priority of governments worldwide, broadly-written security laws have been twisted to silence journalists”, wrote Index on Censorship’s Jodie Ginsburg last year.
Type the word “terror” into the search box of Mapping Media Freedom, Index on Censorship’s European media freedom monitor, and more than 200 cases appear related to journalists targeted for their work under terror laws.
“This includes everything from alleged public order offences in Catalonia to the “harming of national interests in Ukraine” to the hundreds of journalists jailed in Turkey following the failed coup” says Ginsberg.
The Council of Europe’s live tracker currently lists 126 journalists in detention across the EU.
-
The environmental cost of GLP-1sThe explainer Producing the drugs is a dirty process
-
Greenland’s capital becomes ground zero for the country’s diplomatic straitsIN THE SPOTLIGHT A flurry of new consular activity in Nuuk shows how important Greenland has become to Europeans’ anxiety about American imperialism
-
‘This is something that happens all too often’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Epstein files topple law CEO, roil UK governmentSpeed Read Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the US, is caught up in the scandal
-
Iran and US prepare to meet after skirmishesSpeed Read The incident comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
