Op 20 september 2021 was Yvonne Zonderop één van de panelleden bij een avond in De Balie over de veiligheid van journalisten in de EU. Zij nam deel aan het panel in de hoedanigheid als bestuurslid van de UNESCO Commissie Nederland, waar zij zich in het bijzonder richt op journalistiek en democratie.
Kijk het programma terug en lees daaronder meer informatie over de avond.
How Safe Is the EU for Journalists? from De Balie TV on Vimeo.
The arrest of Roman Protasevich, for which the Belarusian authorities diverted a flight between two EU member states, was a brutal wake-up call for Europe. How can and should we protect journalists against attacks on the freedom of the press, and who is in charge: governments, international organisations or journalists themselves?
Not only in totalitarian states like Belarus, but also within European democracies investigative journalism has become a life-threatening profession, especially since the notion of ‘fake news media’ has created a culture of hostility towards the press – in the Netherlands, public broadcaster NOS removed its logo from its vehicles, in fear of attacks.
Freedom of the press is fundamental to well-functioning democracies, but what is left of it when critical journalists have to fear for their lives for simply doing their job?
Will investigative journalism soon be something of the past? Or can governments, international organisations, and journalists themselves contribute to creating a safe environment for journalists, and if so: what urgent actions should they take?
About the speakers
Tasha Arlova is a Belarusian artist who recently graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She works with photography, performative videos and short films. Arlova is one of the founders of the Second Thoughts reading club dedicated to ‘a collective exploration on Eastern Europeanness’ and co-organiser of multiple exhibitions dedicated to Belarusian protests.
Bahia Tahzib-Lie is Human Rights Ambassador at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this position, she promotes human rights, among which freedom of expression, worldwide. To do so, she cooperates with civil society organisations, activists, trade unions and international organisations.
Hubert Smeets is a historian, journalist and Eastern Europe expert. On a weekly basis, he writes about the tilting world order in NRC Handelsblad. Smeets is also co-initiator and coordinator of the knowledge and analysis platform Window to Russia.
Yvonne Zonderop is an author and journalist writing on various social issues for the Groene Amsterdammer, among others. She is chair of the supervisory board of Stichting Democratie en Media, that combats totalitarianism in social and political life and strives for pluralistic media, as well as member of the Netherlands Commission of Unesco.
