A monthly round-up of Liberties' work: Cleaning up corruption, tackling threats to media freedom, and first knowledge hub graduates.

Liberties joins open letter on Article 17 of the draft European Media Freedom Act.

Nicholas Aiossa, Deputy Director of Transparency International – EU, discusses the bribery and money laundering scandal that’s shaken the European Parliament and how to clean up its ‘culture of impunity’.

The EU is preparing a new law on media freedom. The initiative is promising, but improvements are required. Here is what it should look like. For the long-format version, download our new policy brief.

Poland appears to have started reinstating judges suspended or demoted for being critical of the government, as this is one of the key conditions that the EU set for disbursing the COVID recovery funds to Poland.

The right to access information is a fundamental right, protected by most constitutions worldwide. When citizens can access information about how their government is performing, they can exercise their right to freedom of expression more meaningfully.

Although Lithuania criminalized stalking in the fall of 2021, proving it in court is still difficult: more than half of registered stalking cases are dropped.

Spain is proving to be the most difficult country to probe in the investigation of the use of spyware. In November 2022 Joanna Giménez and a photojournalist were arrested as they attempted to cover a protest by environmental activists.

Civicus Monitor

The report, which covers 2020-2021, shows that while the situation improved in some fields - such as more attention to mental health and a reduction in prisoner numbers - progress remained stalled in others.