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[FPU Live] Press conference: Report on the safety of journalists in the Netherlands

Posted in: Blog April 23, 2022

Good afternoon everyone and a very warm welcome 
to the presentation of the report of the   Media Freedom Rapid Response mission on the 
Safety of Journalists here in The Netherlands.   This press conference will be done in english 
because the mission was conducted by an   international coalition and we also have 
an international audience mainly online. media freedom rapid response is a consortium of 
six european media and press freedom organizations   i will all name them so we start with the european 
center for press and media freedom the european   feder federation of journalists article 19 
international press institute the osafertorio   balcony et cocozo trans europa italian 
italian and free press unlimited   the media freedom rapid response is funded by the 
european commission and its objective is to give   legal and practical support to journalists in the 
member countries and candidate countries of the   union the consortium monitors press freedom in 
these countries and undertakes also advocacy to   strive for more and better press 
freedom and the safety of journalists the mfr already conducted several missions 
in other countries so the netherlands is   not the first other countries where 
the mission was taking place was   poland slovenia hungary italy and serbia 
so now you might ask why the netherlands   because the netherlands of course has 
a very good reputation when it comes to   the safety of journalists it is known 
as a front fighter for press freedom   and internationally it stands 
for a safe haven for journalists   and a well-known new initiative called peschweiler 
which is actually an agreement between the dutch   association of journalists the dutch social 
society of editors in chief and on the other   side the police and the public prosecution 
has also a very good name internationally so why then a mission here in the netherlands   because sadly despite being a front fighter for 
press freedom here in the netherlands we also face increasingly violations and a hostile climate 
against journalists we all remember the decision   of the dutch public broadcaster to remove the 
logos from their transportation vehicles right   to actually protect their employees and 
of course we remember the horrible murder   on the dutch crime journalist peter alfrese on 
broad daylight but we also see an increasingly   violation against journalists during 
demonstrations even peaceful demonstrations pearsweller also monitors a lot of these 
alerts and in 2021 they filed 270 alerts   intimidation violation harassment all against 
journalists that number was in 2020 only 121   so there's a steep increase and the 
question is of course why why is the   safety of journalists here in the netherlands 
declining in practice because on paper   we have such a strong safety mechanism like 
pearce failure to find that answer that was   the reason why we free present limited initiated 
this fact-finding mission in the netherlands   we did that in a very close consultation 
with the dutch association of journalists   and as soon as we announced this we got a lot 
of reactions there's a huge interest for this for this particular mission we interviewed 
a wide range of stakeholders varying from of   course journalists and editors in chiefs but also 
policymakers a member of parliament and of course   the coordinator of persvela and the results of the 
investigation are to be found in this report which   will be presented in just a couple of minutes 
and the report is named spotlight on safety   advancing protection for journalists amidst 
rising threats here in the netherlands   the report the main results of the report 
will be presented by laurence hutting from   the european center of press and media freedom 
and christian of three person limited and after   their presentation there will be two panels who 
will go into the recommendations of the report   one will look into the prevention and strategies 
with a specific gender lens and the other panel   will go into the protection of journalists i 
hope that you have a very interesting afternoon   and i wish you all the best and laurence 
can i give you the floor thank you very much thank you ritz um and thank you all for being 
here to start with a real thank you because i   think the fact that we are here today with 
such a wide range of actors ranging from   the policy makers politicians to of course the 
journalistic community editors in chief but also   law enforcement and academic experts is really 
something that should not be taken for granted   especially when looking at what is happening 
in russia today for instance where journalists   are increa like of course there's there is 
no journalism left um a meeting that we are   having today would be absolutely impossible and 
that's an understatement i think so to start with   uh thank you for showing up today and to for um 
showing your support for the safety of journalists   in the netherlands in this regard i think 
the netherlands is clearly a very safe haven   for journalists that being said let us now 
zoom into um the the safety of journalists in   the netherlands so at the center of um the dutch 
policy regarding safety of journalists is perfect   or in english press safe i think for the 
audience here in the room this is already   quite known but we also have an international 
audience online so just to briefly explain   perspective is a safety mechanism 
including several protocols   national action plans and guidelines and it was 
established in 2019 by the national police as it   said the dutch journalists union the association 
of editors in chief and the public prosecution   office and it is co-funded by several ministries 
of the dutch government so in that regard   perspective is a very unique safety mechanism 
that's also internationally often praised   so to begin with in our report what we found 
is that the symbolic value of perspective is   very high so an example is the perspire hotline 
where journalists who are faced with harassment   intimidation violence and other forms of press 
freedom violations can file a report and this   gives a very clear signal to society that no 
press freedom violation violation should ever   be accepted in the netherlands and also that 
this is not part of the job of journalists   but this hotline also means that 
data are collected at a central point   and that press freedom violations in the 
netherlands are now being monitored consistently   so this has shown an increase in the past year for 
instance um of threats against journalists and we   see that this has clearly led to more awareness on 
the policy level and in that sense we conclude in   our report that perspire has really strengthened 
the voice of journalists towards the authorities   but of course perfect also leads to more practical 
improvements of safety of journalists on the   ground so in the mission in the meetings that we 
had as part of the mission what came forward very   often was the example of the safety trainings that 
are offered by perspective so these are basically   trainings offered to reporters journalists but 
also photographers and also offered to freelancers   for free to basically prepare them for the 
potential violence that they may face while   reporting for instance on demonstrations so it 
is a way to make them more resilient and to teach   them coping strategies and this in our mission 
really came forward as one of the um well it's   very appreciate very much appreciated by the 
journalistic community and also serves as an   example for other um countries we think but at the 
same time we're of course not here today just to   praise pearce fail but we also need to zoom out a 
bit and look at room for improvement of course in   the dutch generally in the dutch policy regarding 
safety of journalists and we're also here today   to provide some recommendations um and despite the 
perspective efforts we cannot ignore the fact that   ezra also said threats and aggression against 
journalists are and remain on the rise in the   netherlands so this in fact has led us to believe 
that prosecuting the aggressors of journalists   and at the same time improving coping strategies 
of journalists to deal with harassment that they   face is just simply not enough so to remain an 
international pioneer the netherlands really need   to do more about preventing these threats against 
journalists and the netherlands need to do more   in order to address the root causes underlying 
such threats and such aggression so first is will   we think require more investigation more research 
into the motives that people hold like why do   people harass journalists why do people think it 
is okay to um to throw to throw eggs at reporters   at demonstrations what are the underlying 
root causes and i think following from that   policy is needed to improve the position of 
journalists in the dutch society and to really   strengthen their role and also the perception 
of the role of journalists as a fourth pillar   in our democracy so in that's why we recommend to 
the dutch authorities in particular the ministry   of education culture and justice to explore this 
option further and we hope that today the first   panel of today will be a first um exploration 
of that recommendation but first lawrence will   share a bit more thanks khushi so i'll address uh 
four further key action points that came out of   our fact-finding they are uh firstly about gender 
secondly the need for uh advancing tailor-made   protection options uh to tackle threats uh 
coming from organized crime the third one is   about policing protests and lastly also the need 
to preserve and expand the capacity of pexfelish   so the first action point concerns the need 
for specific policies that will improve the   safety of women journalists throughout the 
mission we heard the from our interlocutors   that women journalists face specific types 
of threats and are also more frequently   subjected to attacks in specific contexts 
online context being an important one here   the netherlands in other words is no exception 
to european and global trends in in this regard   at the same time establishing the scope and the 
intensity of the problem here in the netherlands   proved proof challenging as there is currently 
no systematic systemic monitoring mechanism that   tracks this gendered and gender-based violence and 
harassment we're concerned about this blind spot   first because there is a blind spot and that 
that's a problem in se but also because of   the impact or the implication that having this 
blind spot has in on the development of policies   creating solutions that work after all really 
requires a precise understanding of the problem   and so that's why one of our recommendations is 
that monitoring of attacks and harassment of women   journalists specifically should be strengthened 
one possible solution could be to integrate   this into pex felix alert mechanism which at the 
moment does not collect data about the gender of   the affected journalist the second action point 
concerns the need to accelerate the development   of tailor-made protection for journalists 
who face threats coming from organized crime   we heard during the mission that the threat 
from the underworld must be taken more seriously   and that the current approach is too naive the 
word kindergarten or childish came up repeatedly   during during our interviews at the same time 
it's clear that not all journalists who face   the same or similar threats um either require 
or want the same format and the same type of   protection um so there needs to be a move away 
from a cookie cutter approach into something that   is tailored and fits each journalist's individual 
situation in any case whatever the shape that this   protection then takes it must allow a reporter to 
continue working which especially for for crime   journalists a key point here is the protection of 
their sources as they are in contact with people   who may not be too keen on that meeting being 
joined by a police officer as well for example   thirdly i wanted to briefly address the 
interaction between reporters and police during   protests many journalists told us that in recent 
years tension has increased this is despite a   very high willingness for cooperation between the 
various actors but nevertheless there remains a   need to ensure a better understanding of the role 
of the press during demonstrations at the moment   our understanding is that a lack of capacity seems 
to be part of the explanation of the problem this   increased understanding then should also translate 
into changes to operational procedures with a   view to minimizing interference and obstruction of 
reporting during during demonstrations this all to   include among other things um improvement of the 
practice around the recognition of the press card   lastly the the final action point i wanted 
to raise before handing it over to to our   panelists is the capacity of beijing with this 
mechanism the netherlands has really created   a rare gem of best practice if you look at 
the european context and so now it's important   to keep this european leadership as fuchs also 
mentioned so with that in mind the media freedom   rapid response recommends further investment 
in in this mechanism and in its resources   this should include the full financing 
of the mechanism in the post-subsidy era   and also an expansion of its human capital its 
human resources so that the mechanism can respond   on the one hand to the the increase in 
threats that are currently within its scope   but also can broaden that scope to include 
for example a gender lens or to invest more   in prevention um i'll keep it at this 
and hand it over to our moderator hi everyone good afternoon um so it is now 
time to uh dive a little deeper into some of   the recommendations that we just heard um 
and we will do that through two panels as   ruth briefly mentioned um the first panel 
will focus on prevention strategies of women   journalists and the second panel will focus on the 
safety of journalists during demonstrations and in   the context of organized crime my name is flores 
schultz north and i will be moderating both panels   um i'd like to invite the first 
panel up on stage ingrid and rowan while you're walking up i will briefly 
introduce who i have with with me here on stage introducing each other rohan blight program maker 
for cairo ncrv and founder of the glow up welcome   um and england michonne dutch member of parliament 
of the v day party and spokesperson on justice and   security we had a third panelist who unfortunately 
was sick today from the ministry of education   but i'm certain that we will have enough 
valuable insights with these two panelists   today um so welcome i have some questions for 
us to start off the discussion and after that   at the end of this panel there will be room for 
questions from the audience uh so i'd like to ask   you to save your questions till the end please 
uh and for those watching uh through livestream   you can post your questions in the chat and 
we will um get to those at the end as well   uh rowan let's start with you uh 
one of the findings from the report   is that women journalists in the netherlands 
face more online more threats and violence than   their male colleagues especially online you are a 
female journalist do you agree is this something   that you experience as well um i wholeheartedly 
agree the thing is that it always was a feeling   or i heard my other female colleagues talk about 
it talk about the threats that they receive um   but i um i'm glad that we're now getting to the 
step that we are going to collect data to back   that feeling up so i wholeheartedly 
agree that we as female journalists   have a very hard time doing our jobs because 
we get critiqued for not only doing our jobs   but also for who we are or where we are from so 
it's um it gets very personal very easily yeah   yeah i can understand that uh that you that it's 
good to know you didn't just imagine it yeah um   what are the i'm just gonna have one follow-up 
question for you what are the effects of this   violence in your work do you self-censor for 
example or how do you how does it affect your   day-to-day work um for me for example i um back 
in 2017 have received a lot of threats for um   something very like i thought it was very fun and 
light light-hearted um but for me personally when   i received those threats and all those messages 
um i really uh thought about the possibility of   possibly leaving this job and do something 
else or not be on the forefront as much or   not tell the stories that i'm uh used to tell um 
so that's that was it for me that's a huge effect   for a journalist of course um ingrid a question 
for you so next to specific recommendations on   safety of women journalists prevention was also a 
big theme in the report that needed improvement in   the netherlands and we know that the fever day 
puts a quite strong emphasis on prosecution and   stronger punishment what is the vision of the 
veda in terms of prevention yeah well i uh   thank you and thank you for having me here it's a 
very interesting afternoon and a good initiative   and i think that prevention and the pres the 
prosecution has to be is both sides on one metal   so you can't only focus on prevention without 
sort of keeping the door closed so we did a lot   of initiatives like there's one initiative called 
doxing that's a new law which which tries to   sort of copes with threatening on the internet so 
like if you example see your name or you see your   your address it can be very threatening to put 
it online but of course prevention in my point of   view is starts with sort of drawing the line even 
in parliament where i am if you see my colleagues   talking about mainstream media or 
their sort of encouraging people who   who are not dealing with the law we got here 
and i think it's very important as a member of   parliament that you stand up and you you speak 
speak out for our journalists and that's what we   do as a favorite day yeah um yeah drawing the line 
and and pinpointing what it is that we're dealing   with is super important of course do you link that 
to some sort of education uh programs in terms of   prevention well for me journalism is is a 
very important uh pillar on the whole the   whole house we built in holland on our democracy 
and a rule of law so in that way yes of course   it is education we got like uh it's very 
important to uh sort of yeah sort of um   be careful with the institutions we have and 
i think journalism is a very important sort of   institution in the whole house of democracy in 
the whole house of rule of law that we got here   in this country and yeah in that way it's of 
course it starts with education yes definitely   and uh just to stay with you for one follow-up 
question uh specifically because we're talking   about women journalists here um do you have 
uh policy or policy ideas to better protect   women journalists specifically actually no no 
that's i heard this uh uh today in this report   and it's very important to set the agenda and i 
to hear it from you and as a female politician   i think um yeah we i think we got some uh 
same experiences um so i think it's very   very important to set the agenda and to see 
what's especially needed for female journalists i   i even think that there are not so so many female 
journalists are there oh well no there are lots of   female journalists a women journalist yes yes 
there are and um that's why i also think that   in that respect that we really need to monitor 
the data and we really need to um um count and   not count the women out because that's what 
uh what we've been doing for a long time um   and also not count their experiences out as well 
yeah yeah that's definitely true and i think now   that there's so much attention on like being a 
woman and the gender-based aspect of violence   as you say politicians and journalists are quite 
close to each other they're both in the spotlight   both quite vulnerable um so it's it's yeah it's 
good to address that group um as such um rowan you   are hearing just now in the recommendations 
by christian lawrence and right now in this   conversation quite some recommendations 
and ideas about you and your work um   hearing this do you think this will help or   um yes of course no no i really do think um um 
the four points that were already made do help   um and i do hope that um we can stick to it and 
that it will we can keep it top of mind as well   and my thing really is to uh to monitor the data 
to have some data to have something to grasp   uh to inform policies to inform inform research 
further research i mean um so i hope i agree with   what has already been said yeah a lack of data 
is uh is of course a huge issue so it's good that   that's a recommendation um in the report um ingrid 
to ask you a follow-up question um what do you   think is the responsibility of other stakeholders 
so we're talking about journalists here um but as   you said you have the doxing law um and platforms 
are involved there newsrooms are involved they   probably have a duty of care for their journalists 
where does the responsibility lie towards other   stakeholders do you feel like like others other 
stuff so other so the platforms um what do you   feel that platforms for example should uh okay do 
you feel they have a responsibility in this regard   well i think it's i think it's a common 
responsibility because we this problem is is   much bigger than you can cope alone on this 
journalist uh the community of journalists   cannot scope cannot do it alone so i think 
it's that's why perspire they stood up   that's why uh members of parliaments and 
also of course the ministries they sort of   want to cooperate with pearce failure and they 
want to uh yeah they want they want to fund it   and i think uh that's a very good initiative 
because then there you see uh problems in a hall   so not like like divided but the whole problem uh 
and i think it's very important that uh perfect   that's one one of the action uh as well 
that person will continue and and uh will   maybe increase also their um their um attention 
for example for female journalism because that's   the beginning of the discussion and the discussion 
then starts not only in parliament but also just   in society and on the ministries like what do 
we think is normal what is needed to protect   our journalists and that can be like as a 
member of parliament it's always about well   sort of measures to protect them for example 
the funding we do it with perspective funding   so every student is who has not an employer 
can can follow courses or they can have a   red button to protect themselves 
so that's like small measures to   make their work in a safer environment but 
it's like so much more so i think it's very   important to um to cooperate and to do it 
together with every stakeholder because i   think in society and in parliament and on the 
ministries everybody agrees that we have to be   very careful and we have to stand up for 
our journalists so in that way there's not   much uh difference of understanding yeah no i i i 
hear you and we need a multi-stakeholder approach   that's what i'm hearing in your answer definitely 
um i'm seeing some questions coming through the   chat which is a nice bridge for a question to 
you rowan um journalism journalists themselves   of course are also stakeholder here so what do you 
think is the role of journalism or a journalist   itself to protect specifically women journalists 
in this case it's uh they have a very big role to   have this infrastructure or a safety net 
available for their own journalists that   might have some harassment issues issues 
coming towards them for example when i faced   my sort of harassments back in uh back in 
2017.

It was very hard for me to um find   uh the right path within the company to see who 
could help me who could support me um the main   reaction that i got from colleagues was it's part 
of the job that's just that's just what happens   um and that wasn't enough for me so what 
happened afterwards for me was that i joined the   uh association of journalists um so that was 
what i did but i think that uh the the the public   broadcasting system that we have um that there are 
lots of steps available for example um in other   countries all uh there they also have examples 
ready um for what you can do to support your   journalists i think a safety net in the 
form of even asking how are you how is   this affecting you that's a small step that you 
could even undertake but there are lots of other   things that um they can do and i think it's very 
important to realize as a broadcaster for example   i'm using my own example um to realize the role 
that you have in supporting your own journalists   and i i hope that um with everything that's 
uh happening right now that the realization um   is is is there right now that's what i hope yeah 
yeah so this attitude of it's part of the job yeah   of course a deeper rooted um issue it's a more 
systemic issue that we need a culture change in   some way to view positions of journalists just 
one follow-up question about this network that   you're talking about do you feel um supported 
enough by existing networks or do you feel   that there really is an area of improvement there 
uh for a whole new network to be set up um i think   there is room for um um uh how do you say that 
for um an extra network you could say i think our   approach has been very broad in the netherlands 
it has been very um we can help journalists as a   whole but um as we already heard before we really 
need some gender-based studies and a gender-based   approach for women a journalist in this example 
because they get a different type of threats than   male journalists get so i really think that if 
i think of my own examples if i think of the   friends i have that work in journalism the 
approach that we need is um very different   towards us than towards men and yeah i think 
um there's a whole lot of work to do in that   aspect yeah recognizing these attacks 
as gender-based there's a huge gender   component because the attacks are often same as 
politicians sexual um misogynistic and it really   needs to be um recognized as such uh did you want 
to respond just now after that i'm gonna look to   the audience if there are any questions uh left i 
think i think it's of course it's important to um   uh to to tell about it in your own company and you 
have your your boss you have an employer but there   are a lot of journalists freelancers and they 
are on their own so i think for that specific   group than perspective but also like every every 
police every region police region got his own   single point of contact especially for journalists 
who are threatened who are dealing with harassment   so i think yeah even for the freelance journalism 
they can feel more sort of in isolation and   more alone even uh people working in in 
in an um yeah in an uh yeah company yeah   public closed caster definitely yeah this group of 
freelancers as extra vulnerable to these attacks   um i'm looking at the time and looking into 
the audience are there any questions here   from this group no um then i think in terms of 
time it goes very fast uh we're going to need to   round off unless one of you has a last remark to 
uh i think one last thing that i really want to   point out is that um for in gender-based violence 
in politics in media in whatever i think it's also   very important in legislation legislation i mean 
that the correct training is available as well for   officers for lawyers for example because 
what we see in gender-based violence and as   a whole is that it's very hard sometimes for 
women to step up and to say what's happening   um so i would also suggest looking at that yes 
strong point to end this panel with i think   thank you both so much for uh joining us 
today here um thank you and i'd like to   invite the second panel up but perhaps first a 
round of applause for this uh panel thank you the second panel um while you walk up here i will 
introduce you um so in the second panel we will   focus on another major theme in the report um the 
safety of journalists during demonstrations and in   the context of organized crime and with us here 
today we have starting on my right your left uh   paul fix investigative crime journalist for parole 
we have thomas bruning general secretary from the   dutch association of journalists and we have bae 
de may head of operations at the dutch police   welcome thank you for being here uh paul i'll 
start with you um so the murder of peter de frisc   sparked a nationwide discussion on the safety 
of journalists and more specifically on   personal protection of journalists and one of the 
recommendations in the report was this tailor-made   personal protection and given your experience with 
personal protection uh what is your view on this because the protection being tailor-made is is the 
most important uh the whole complex of protection   i've been they planned to kill me in 2017 and i've 
been in the best protection we have in holland   the the royal diplomatic security service 
dean's colleague look at the valking   that's top of the bill so i've we lived 
in a safe house my girlfriend and i   and i was with them and they protected me all uh 
to all the places at all the place where we went   but if it's if you get one step lower or aside 
whether whatever you would call it it's got to be more critical because if you my 
tailor-made package was 100 percent   the way i wanted to have it because uh my 
uh the person uh i i dealt with i spoke with   always the same person we were 
uh absolutely um we shared those   uh and uh that is a big issue in some other parts 
of uh the netherlands and it's a big issue that uh   um as the higher you you get into uh uh to the 
hague um the the distance is is uh um too wide   it's too long you need you need someone uh really 
close to you uh so i live in amsterdam i i really   needed someone in amsterdam uh who i could talk 
to who i can go to where i can meet whenever i   want and once i need to go from amsterdam 
to the hague uh to for example ncfa   the contra terror organization who gets involved 
that this is too long you you are not on speaking   terms with the same persons uh the whole day the 
whole week and that's very important so sorry just   to clarify for those who are not very into this 
matter um you you mean the higher in the hague   uh so the higher up in hierarchy for example at 
the nctv yes and you had good personal protection   because of the proximity short distance yeah 
proximity okay and why did you get this personal   protection and uh what made your case special 
one specific crime group uh wants to kill me uh   and it was the the information was very specific 
um and if i uh wouldn't have been in protection   i wouldn't have lived uh so yeah that was very 
specific uh my colleague silva hovel working   for the telegraph as everybody does he's in 
the same kind of protection from uh december   2017 up until now we have lawyers in the same 
kind of protection unfortunately and we have uh   and judges being secured that way so that's 
the new reality we need to face and i don't   want anybody to say it's not dutch way it's the 
dutch threat it's a threat for us in holland as   well it's not italy it's us yeah it's it's 
the reality uh it's our reality um one quick   follow-up question before i move on to uh the next 
paladin panelist um personal protection of course   uh requires a careful balance between journalistic 
freedoms on the one hand and safety on the other   hand um which is always kind of the clash right 
so how do you think this balance is best protected   in my personal story it was the only 
group i could not meet uh easily was the   criminals themselves because the security 
service wouldn't bring me to them because   but i needed a call probably but i still need 
them as sources i need to to be able to speak   to everybody so that that was yeah that we had 
worked to i was the first journalist in holland   uh in this protective program so we were pioneers 
in uh and we found out i can't tell how but we   we we finally finally found a way to do it but 
um in general um the um royal and diplomatic   security service made it possible for me to 
meet whoever i want to meet you have the privacy   you have no your agenda needs to be on their 
side four days before so you have no um it's it's not an easy way of living but they made 
me uh they made it possible for me to do my job   good yeah so um it seems really seems there is an 
added value uh to this tailor-made uh protection   as you say it's crucial yeah yeah um thank you 
uh thomas i have a question for you um perspire   of which you are on the steering committee um is 
the mechanism in the netherlands when it comes to   the safety of journalists and the demand is high 
at the same time the ministry has uh announced   that it will stop its funding per 2024 if i'm 
correct uh so a more general question um for you   what does the future of perspective look like 
where do you see pierce felix in five years   well i'm happy with this meeting and i'm 
also happy with the well this sort of   positive european audit of what we're doing with 
pierce failure until now and but to be honest   the fact the point you're making is giving us some 
sort of worry because as we experience until now   it's crucial at one hand that the sector itself 
the media companies the public broadcaster and   the commercial broadcasters are uh are joining 
uh forces also in a financial we're giving   financial means to support perspective but 
we also experience that it's really necessary   to have a public support as well and 
what we emphasized the last few years and   happily the the members of parliament and the 
ministers uh supported this as well is we said if   you want to do a project like this you need a sort 
of structural base otherwise it becomes a project   and you have to send away the people involved 
with it after three years or two years and   you get this whole system again and 
our experiences with other types of   uh well let's say things that the media party 
should do together like the ethical council   has given us reason to not only be 
positive about the support the serious   financial support from the from the sector 
itself so until now i especially the public   broadcasters showed that they want 
to invest but it's also a little bit   uh due to the fact that one of the other 
members of the steering committee of in the room here and who has good connections 
to the to the public broadcaster but we   experienced for instance that the the the media 
companies uh let's say more the publishing side   have showed some uh uh you well we had to convince 
them really about this project and i think we need   to sort of join forces to to continue this project 
because it won't go away from itself yeah so   uh yeah so you can rely on some sort of support 
from the sector itself that's good to hear um and   we can expect perspective to not vanish in five 
years if all goes well um i do have a question   so you you're talking about this financial support 
from the sector um from the sector itself do you   think and this is a question that also came 
in by the way uh do you think there is a role   or responsibility for journalists themselves 
in terms of their own in terms of their own   safety and if so what do you think that is well 
definitely and one of the things i thought would   could also be a recommendation would be the the 
this let's say unstable position of freelance   journalist here in holland here because i think 
and i've said it here in the parliament as well   in earlier meetings that i uh that to be a 
professional journalist you have to have the means   also yourself to protect yourself and what 
one of the outcomes what we see and i think   it was mentioned in the report as well is that for 
instance photojournalists or freelance journalists   they although they get offered these trainings for 
free and these trainings usually would cost five   six hundred euros a day they still would uh cancel 
in the last moment because they say okay we can   earn 300 euros today so we won't do it because 
we need the money and this is only one example   and one of the others is of course that 
that usually freelancers aren't able to hire   a special place to work so they're working 
from out of their house with me which makes   them also more vulnerable and and the same 
goes for let's say the bulletproof vest or or   other sources of protection it's quite worrisome 
if you have to think about these things   yeah and at the same time being a professional 
and and unless last week we were in in another uh   we were at the court because and and 
we also mentioned this problem because   for instance photo photographers they work not on 
an hourly base for media companies but they work   on the basis of giving giving them for a profoto 
they get paid for photo but if you go to some   dense demonstration or some you know places 
where you in fact you have to invest first   you know to be safe you have to place your car 
uh not directly on the demonstration you have to   it would be much more better not to bring your 
camera directly you know so you can connect with   the people and see how your position is but if 
you get paid by photo it's not easy to make this   decision because you have to do it in your own 
time so yeah thank you thank you i'm hearing   i'm hearing this these struggles or these issues 
around freelance journalists but i want to ask you   a question but i want to give paul one chance 
to react uh to the freelance issue if you like i've been uh stressed in this point uh for 
for years now uh because um i work for a big   publishing company uh so uh from my cars were were 
paid uh very well with without hesitate but uh my   work colleagues who work freelance they sometimes 
need to think twice or uh or longer if they are   gonna put one or another story out because with 
the risk of being harassed or even killed or accused in court and need to pay a lawyer and 
this chilling effect is a big big danger to   the freedom of press yeah yeah this uh it 
is a vulnerable group what we heard in the   first panel and now uh it's reiterated again 
um to uh include you in the conversation now   um one of the recommendations in the report is 
uh that there's more need for police capacity   and what do you think is needed to 
better implement the perspective protocol   within the police yeah every problem 
in the world the answer is more police so but i i think we're always short on budget 
and policemen of course but i think it's a very   serious problem that we have here on our hands 
and i think the report and also this conversation   uh that realized the police that we have to 
do more than than we do now i think peshwa is   a very good start because we all in in this room 
realize uh and we experience all uh these attacks   uh it's it's indeed uh a fact of life now there's 
science uh members of parliament journalists and   also policemen they are attacked in their work and 
it's not acceptable so i think the most important   statement that we have to make here is uh society 
should not accept this and of course we are as a   police the last resort but we are not a solution 
to every problem and i think in paschfield   there is an understanding that journalists first 
have to protect themselves the companies are   responsible and there is a last resort and that's 
the police and i think it's very important as as   as a nation a democratic nation that we 
support journalists to do their work i   think it's very important and for that case we 
not only more police capacity but we have to   give priority to this matter so we cannot do 
investigation do all the crimes that there are   but this is a specific group and we have to give 
priority so i think that is important yeah no   i hear you and i agree um i do hear the need for 
prevention measures as well in your answer um just   to zoom in on one more practical um uh approach 
which we were just discussing is tailor-made   protection from a police point of view um do you 
expect to put this in practice more um is that   feasible this recommendation from the uh from the 
report yeah i think it's good to uh to talk about   it and we have this uh a single point of contact 
in every region my colleague bim honaut is also   here and he talk uh on the frequently based with 
the journalists so what do you experiences what   are the specific problems and i think uh in the 
one region it's it's another case because uh   paul um yeah he's on the top level of threatening 
but we're happy that in the netherlands luckily   most journalists don't experience that kind 
of threat so it's important not only that   single point of contact in the network but it's 
also important that when you call the police one you feel protected or 
yeah that every policeman   will act not only one person in the region but 
every policeman when you call the police they   act on a good way and they give priority do you do 
you feel there's an urgency within the police to   uh that understands the role of journalists in 
society do you feel there's enough understanding   in the police to uh i think it can be 
better it's growing but it can be better   okay okay thank you i agree on that there are 
still police stations where it's hard to uh yeah   to tell your story yeah 
not my story because that's   not a spectrum but the story of uh colleagues 
a colleague being harassed uh online and uh   uh trying to discuss it and being sent away then 
of course we call percever and uh and we'll we'll   find our way yeah but it should be more uh in the 
roots of the police yeah do you feel perspective   is is a a platform where there which is serves as 
the basis for this dialogue or do you feel that   there needs to be more invested in strengthening 
this dialogue between journalists and the police   i think better i'm looking at any of you too is 
a good brand so we have to uh to keep that up   not only for a few years years as a project but 
on long term so that's important but we have 65   000 policemen so we have to do more about the 
awareness that journalists are threatened yeah   yeah but i think that the person can 
be a good basis for for having these   uh contacts that these and when it be because what 
you're explaining of course they're not gonna and   i can understand it i mean when you have 60 000 
people working at the at the organization you   can't expect them all to be informed in the right 
way and that's the reason that these single points   of contact are so important so you can directly 
go to the the better level to address the case   when something goes wrong and what we saw last 
year is also because we have to with the steering   committee we are well every three minutes three 
months or something we're checking on the on the   also on the data what we get in uh as as 
problems and also the the reports at the police   and what we saw last year which is good is that 
there were almost as much reports at the police as   there were at perfect which means that the the 
police found have placed it in the right basket   yeah so they recognize it as journalists going 
to uh to the police station so this is one of   the things that comes out that is positive 
well i mean yeah it underlines that that   perspective of course is a best practice in 
the international context for a good reason   um it's good we have the space in the 
netherlands uh looking at the time   i'm gonna look into the audience 
if there are any questions here no i see one coming in online which is 
a follow-up question to all of you um   the netherlands serves as a good practice when 
advising other states on their measures to improve   the safety of journalists what recommend what 
recommendation would you give based on perspective so the way i hear that question is if other 
countries want to implement perspective yeah yeah   well what i did because we have also we're in good 
good contact with our european affiliates and and   also for instance belgium was so inspired by what 
we're doing right here that they'll already uh   made the step to to put perfectly dot 
be online so so there's just starting it   but what i advised them was you first have to 
start with a good research among the journalists   themselves because what we did so for several 
years and every six years or something we went to   our members and we said we checked on them but the 
the the big difference was uh when breneckmeyer   and other character in back in 2019 really did a 
good research and then it was really put high on   the agenda also politically so so i think if you 
want to start somewhere you really have to have a   real good research because you also make clear 
to your to them to the journalists themselves   that they as rowan said before that you should not 
take it for granted or something but you should   uh speak out about it and then you should 
do something about it and you should   involve your editors-in-chief and your the 
management in this so i think training research   and getting the the the the 
managers involved is very important   alongside with the police and yeah good thing 
i think awareness is crucial uh awareness   and the horrible fact that uh peter edwards has 
been killed last summer uh the horrible fact that   uh marty [ __ ] crime blogger has been killed and 
the lawyer of crown witness and the brother of the   crown witness and the newsrooms of the telegraph 
and panorama have been attacked those horrible   facts make make sure that for one to three 
months it's on top of everybody's minds and then   it fades away yeah and that's uh that should not 
happen and if i may stay make one more statement   the courtrooms the extra secured courtrooms are 
uh very well protected but not for journalists   outside and not for lawyers of uh lawyers who need 
to go there um and we tried to stress this for a   long time and now we we got 10 email addresses 
of the 10 courts if we have any questions we can   email that's not the solution for this no and is 
i'm going to look at is that something you want to   uh react to um this need for this it's not the 
problem please no that's a introduction yeah   that's my statement uh the first thing 
is that uh hands off uh the journalists   we must uh uh influence the public opinion you 
don't uh attack journalists and then comes uh   the police yeah at the end and the populist 
politicians should stop poisoning the debate   uh yeah the atmosphere this is of course the 
need what's in the report as well about this uh   prevention and this need for a culture shift 
to recognize the role of journalists in society   um i have one last question um and then i think 
we have to round off because i'm not seeing any   hands in the uh in the audience um we've spoken 
about different measures to protect journalists   but what is the first priority now to improve 
the safety of journalists according to prime   crime reporters journalists unions and the police 
perspective so everyone their own perspective uh   basically what's the first priority 
in terms of protecting journalists   at the moment tailor-made um okay discussions 
yeah tailor-made yeah i think solutions yeah   yeah i think at the moment where we are right 
now i think we have to look at the prevention   and and we're looking for it at the 
report that was promised already for this   spring by the way they say and uh in your 
report i read that it's being postponed to   next year or something it's quite worrisome that 
because we also have to look at what can we do   with prevention what can we what is the intention 
of people who are attacking journalists and what   can we do ourselves so i i hope there's somebody 
from the ministry of of justice here present and   we want to emphasize that this the this research 
should be available earlier than next year yeah   thank you and pay it last remark yeah for me 
uh uh aside of what has been said i think the   network building that's important so that we know 
each other and we can frequently talk about the   experiences yeah good thank you with these last 
three concrete uh recommendations i think that's   a good endnote for this panel um i'd like to thank 
you all very much for joining us here today and   everyone here in the room as well thank you for 
being here um if there are no further questions i   i would like to round off and invite everyone 
for a drink at the bar after this thank you you

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