On 18 March 2025, the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom & Safety (IRFS) conducted a side event on the ‘Shrinking Media Space: The Growing Threats to Independent Journalism and Democracy’ in the margins of the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting at Hofburg, Vienna.
This event addressed an alarming decline of media freedom across the OSCE region, from the South Caucasus through Central Asia. The speakers included Emin Huseynov, co-founder of the IRFS, Teona Sekhniashvili, Europe Network & Advocacy Officer, International Press Institute, Farid Tuhbatullin, Chair, Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, and Diana Nazarets, advocacy officer of the IRFS, who focused on challenges faced by media and journalists in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkmenistan.
The discussion covered the main drivers behind the shrinking of free media space, such as assaults, criminal prosecution and detention, travel bans, but also restrictive laws and media capture. The side event addressed a growing risk of ‘information deserts’, where citizens have ever narrowing channels of information and where journalists and active social media users face retaliation. The desolate situation has been dealt a new blow by suspension of the international broadcaster VoA & cancellation of the grant to the RFE/RL. The speakers also explored broader consequences of media repression on democratic governance and suggested measure which could be taken by multilateral institutions and governments alike.