Media Defence

On 24 June 2026, the Arusha Initiative will formally present the 2027 African Human Rights System Vacancy Situation Report during a multilingual webinar, bringing together AU Member States, NHRIs, bar associations, CSOs, and youth groups from across the continent.

The Report will be presented in English, French, Portuguese, and Arabic.

Register here https://shorturl.at/CHQTt.

📅 24 June | 3PM EAT / 2PM SAST

Sumayyah J Mokku, Litigation Counsel at the Katiba Institute, spent two weeks with us in London last month through Media Defence's Fellowship Programme. She left with new tools and a broader global perspective on defending press freedom. We left with a sharper understanding of what journalists in Kenya are up against.

Read her fellowship reflection:

From Nairobi to London: Media Defence Fellow Sumayyah J. Mokku on Defending Press Freedom in Kenya - Media Defence Media Defence’s Fellowship Programme supports lawyers working on freedom of expression in deepening their skills, broadening their networks, and connecting with peers across the globe. Our most recent legal fellow, Sumayyah J. Mokku, Litigation Counsel at the Katiba Institute and Advocate of the H...

For six years, Hungary's investigative journalists worked in a kind of legal limbo. Reporting in the public interest, meant constantly asking whether reporting was even possible.

The reason was Europe's flagship privacy law. The GDPR was being turned into an instrument of press suppression.

Our funded partner, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union - HCLU, spent six years and more than thirty legal proceedings dismantling that distortion. They have now secured the most significant ruling of the fight.

In a new interview, HCLU legal experts Beatrix Vissy and Léna Perczel explain how data-protection law became a new tool for SLAPPs, how a notification trap was ending investigations before they began, how energy-drink billionaires brought more than 30 proceedings against Forbes Hungary, and how the Budapest Court of Appeal put press freedom back into Hungarian data law.

"Defending fundamental rights is very often about breaking the ice," Vissy says. "At first you see almost nothing, then only small cracks, but over time those cracks can lead to a larger break."

For Hungary's journalists, the cracks are showing.

👉 Read the full interview: https://www.mediadefence.org/news/gdpr-press-freedom-hungary-investigative-journalismgdpr-press-freedom-hungary-investigative-journalism/

Argentina's anti-picket protocol authorises federal security forces to disperse demonstrations and dismantle roadblocks without a court order. In December 2025, a federal court struck it down as unconstitutional, but the government appealed, and the case has now reached Argentina's Supreme Court.

Media Defence spoke with Damián Loreti, the Buenos Aires-based lawyer representing the Press Union of Buenos Aires (SiPreBA) in this landmark class action, about the risks the protocol poses for journalists covering protests, the legal arguments that won at first instance, and what is at stake as the case reaches its most consequential stage yet.

Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/4dIaCjf

advanced three places in Reporters Without Borders (RSF)'s 2026 World Press Freedom Index, published earlier this month, not because conditions improved, but because those in other countries worsened more dramatically.

Nepal now sits at 87th, and although still the highest in South Asia, its press freedom classification dropped from "problematic" to "difficult" this year. For journalists on the ground, that shift reflects what happened in 2025: proposed laws that would have imposed prison sentences of up to five years for online speech, a government ban on 26 social media platforms, 76 people killed in the protests that followed, and a political upheaval that brought down the government.

For our 2025 Impact Report we spoke with Santosh Sigdel, ED of our partner Digital Rights Nepal, about responding to these events in real time: the litigation, the legislation, and the coordinated disinformation campaigns that ran alongside the protests.

📖 Read the full interview: https://www.mediadefence.org/news/partners-in-volatile-press-environmentsin-conversation-with-digital-rights-nepal/

🔎 Explore our interactive 2025 Impact Report: https://media-defence.shorthandstories.com/2025-impact-report/index.html

Supporting Partners in Volatile Press Environments: In Conversation with Digital Rights Nepal - Media Defence In this interview for our 2025 Impact Report, our partner Digital Rights Nepal reflects on defending press freedom and democratic integrity.

𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐔𝐒 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐏𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Media Defence has joined Access Now and nine other civil society organisations in filing an amicus brief before the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, urging the court to uphold the permanent injunction against NSO Group in WhatsApp v. NSO. The brief supports the landmark ruling holding NSO accountable for targeting over 1,400 people across 20 countries with Pegasus spyware through WhatsApp.

Journalists are a particular target of Pegasus, and its use has a deleterious impact on source protection, compelling those targeted to take extraordinary measures to preserve confidentiality. Upholding the injunction is essential for accountability in states' use of spyware and for the protection of public interest journalism and secure communications globally.

Read the press release and full amicus brief 👇

Access Now urges the Ninth Circuit to protect encryption from NSO’s spyware - Access Now Yesterday, Access Now and ten other civil society organizations filed an amicus brief in the U.S.’ Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals calling to protect encryption from NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware and to keep the lower court’s permanent injunction forbidding NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp or its...