Lithuania supports Safety of Female Journalists Online
Lithuania expressed support for ensuring the safety of female journalists in the Digital Age and contributed financially to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media office project “Safety of Female Journalists Online”. The project is dedicated to draw attention to the increasingly escalating security threats to women journalists online and find solutions that will ensure female journalists freedom of expression and security online.
According to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, female journalists face various forms of violence and persecution online and the problem is spreading rapidly in the OSCE region. There are concerns that this could have a negative impact not only on freedom of expression and free media, but also on principles of democratic state.
In order to solve the problems mentioned above, on 17 September in Vienna Hofburg Palace will be held the OSCE expert meeting "New Challenges to Freedom of Expression: Countering Online Abuse of Female Journalists”. The objective of the meeting is to identify the main issues, to collect best practices and draft a set of recommendations to both OSCE participating States authorities and the media. Stakeholders will have the opportunity to participate in a more detailed discussion about the challenges they face in dealing such threats, as well to have exchange of views on the strategies and solutions that could be adopted. Representatives of media, ICT industry, international organizations and think tanks will attend the conference. Lithuania will be represented by the Head of Lithuanian Association of Internet media Aistė Žilinskienė.
Lithuania actively supports female journalists’ safety online and in military conflict zones. On 27 May United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on safety of journalists in conflict zones, which was initiated by Lithuania (no. 2222). For the first time, the freedom of expression and independent media was associated with security of journalists (including women journalists) and the protection of civilians in the context of armed conflicts.
