Human Rights House Foundation statement
HRC62 – Item 3 – Interactive Dialogue – SR freedom of opinion and expression
17 June 2026
Thematic report (Freedom of expression in new frontiers)
Draft guidelines on strengthening the protection of journalists in armed conflicts
Check against delivery.
Thank you, Vice-President.
We thank the Special Rapporteur for her energy and dedication throughout her mandate, and we wish her well for the future. Through her work, we have seen that freedom of opinion and expression are not only rights in themselves. They are also essential for accountability, democratic participation, and the protection of civil society.
First, we welcome her annual report. Its warnings on “securitised expression”, surveillance, and the decline of independent media are already illustrated across our network. In Russia and Belarus, authorities continue to use national security, extremism, and counter-terrorism frameworks to silence journalists and independent civil society.
Elsewhere, including in Georgia and Serbia, SLAPPs and other forms of legal harassment are increasingly used to drain the already limited resources of civil society and encourage self-censorship, particularly online.
Vice-President,
We also welcome the “draft guidelines on strengthening the protection of journalists in armed conflicts”. In Ukraine, journalists and media workers continue to report from areas affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion, including occupied territories, despite serious risks to their safety and security. We again call for the release of Crimean civic journalist Iryna Danylovich from her unjust imprisonment.
We ask the Special Rapporteur: how can States better protect journalists in occupied territories from attacks, detention, surveillance, and reprisals?
Thank you.
