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In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights decided in Pentikäinen v. Finland that the police may create special journalism zones at the sidelines of demonstrations which might turn violent. While do so protects journalists, it also restricts their work. In this short paper, the duties and powers of the police in this context are described.
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Reporting about potentially violent demonstrations: Journalistic Freedoms and Police Powers under the European Convention on Human Rights
In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights decided in Pentikäinen v. Finland that the police may create special journalism zones at the sidelines of demonstrations which might turn violent. While do so protects journalists, it also restricts their work. In this short paper, the duties and powers of the police in this context are described.
In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights decided in Pentikäinen v. Finland that the police may create special journalism zones at the sidelines of demonstrations which might turn violent. While do so protects journalists, it also restricts their work. In this short paper, the duties and powers of the police in this context are described.
Reporting about potentially violent demonstrations: Journalistic Freedoms and Police Powers
under the European Convention on Human Rights
Stefan Kirchner
In recent months, a number of states which are parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), such as Ukraine, Turkey and Germany (Hamburg, Stuttgart) have experienced large scale demonstrations which have turned violent. Often, journalists are at risk of being attacked and injured while reporting from such protests. A recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights deals with the question how the police and regulate journalistic activities in such situations.
In Pentikinen v. Finland the European Court of Human Rights allowed the police to designate specic areas for journalists, even though this made it more difcult to report about such protests. One could be forgiven for considering this case to be fairly simple in nature. While limiting the if of the reporting, not even prescribing how to report, the police simply regulated where to report without directly preventing the journalists access to the situation. However, allowing the police to regulate journalistic activities in such a manner is problematic in two regards - the factual limitations imposed on journalistic work and the possibility of abuse of such powers.
But that is not the end of the story. What matters really is not so much what happened in this case but what could have happened next: This police power can easily be abused by designating areas from which effective reporting is simply not possible. Also, protests etc. often are not static in nature but uid and volatile events. What might have been a perfectly secure place from which to report in one moment might become an extremely dangerous location in the next - of so far from the action that no meaningful reporting is possible simply because there is no access to the necessary information anymore. It is in this context that the Courts decision can have challenging consequences for police forces. Once the decision has been made to designate a specic area for reporters, the police has an obligation to ensure that this area remains secure or that reporters are able to leave the area once when it becomes less than secure. This already follows from the positive dimension of the states duty to protect human life under Article 2 ECHR. On the other hand does the obligation to protect journalistic freedoms also require public authorities to refrain from making journalistic work impossible. If meaningful journalistic work is no longer possible from the designated area, the state would be in violation of its obligations if it would not designate a new journalism area from which reporting is possible. In either case, this will increase the workload of police ofcers, who would not be available to fulll their primary tasks at the same time. It is not permitted that the state bans reporting a specic situation altogether as this would not be necessary in a democratic society.
Therefore, while the European Court of Human Rights permits the establishment of journalism zones, police forces are well advised to consider whether their establishment is really necessary as it would lead to a number of follow-up obligations on the part of public authorities. In any case are authorities obliged to protect the rights and freedoms of everybody under their jurisdiction - even in very difcult circumstances such as mass protests.
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