Self-Paced Online Course on Freedom of Expression, Access to Information, and the Safety of Journalists

Many journalists continue to face challenges when it comes to freedom of expression, access to information, and their safety. UNESCO reports that on average, every five days a journalist is killed for bringing information to the public. These attacks include murder, abductions, harassment, intimidation, illegal arrest, and arbitrary detention. Journalists are censored, intimidated, attacked and often have to grapple with defamatory laws in the contexts in which they work.

Silencing journalists is a threat to all human rights, promoted and protected by the United Nations as its key purpose and guiding principle. Therefore, a joint UN effort is needed to address the challenges and threats facing journalists and media workers. Protecting journalists means protecting freedom of expression and enabling access to information for all. In that perspective, this new self-paced online course is therefore introduced to serve as a great resource for different United Nations stakeholders particularly resident coordinator offices, and UN Country Teams.

Target Audience

The course is designed for UN personnel working in programmatic areas related to freedom of expression, access to information, and the safety of journalists. UN personnel engaged with the Resident Coordinator Offices (RCOs) and United Nations Country Teams (UNCTs) will especially benefit from the contents of the course.

Learning Objectives

The self-paced course aims at up scaling the UN System's understanding of the rights to freedom of expression, access to information and safety of journalists by leveraging international human rights standards on these priorities.