The Most Urgent Threats to Press Freedom Around the World

10 Most Urgent: One Free Press Coalition

As part of the One Free Press Coalition, Euractiv is marking World Press Freedom Day by highlighting ten cases where journalists remain imprisoned for seeking to expose truth.

On today's World Press Freedom Day, the situation of the media around the globe is bleak.

World Press Freedom Day 2025

Freedom of the press is facing growing threats across the world. Authoritarian regimes still imprison, silence, and kill journalists. But today, elected governments are doing the same. In 2024, over 550 journalists were imprisoned worldwide. 124 of them in China alone. Since October 2023, at least 155 journalists have been killed in Gaza, Lebanon, …

The Most Urgent Threats to Press Freedom Around the World

These cases illuminate governments’ efforts at criminalizing journalism, silencing the media, and withholding information from the public.

We are witnessing a major attack on independent journalism – with fatal consequences, says scientist Bernhard Pörksen on the day of freedom of the press on 3 May.

The SafeJournalist database recorded 24 incidents, which is significantly more than the previous year, when there were 16.