Executive Summary
As ‘lawfare’ against journalists escalates in intensity and complexity, lawyers play a critical role in safeguarding free and independent media. As a result, they are themselves becoming the targets of a wide range of attacks that seek to undermine these efforts. In particular, governments around the world are threatening, arresting and prosecuting lawyers to deter them from representing journalists or human rights defenders.
Despite this, the persecution of lawyers on account of their representation of journalists has not been an area of extensive study. To fill this gap, the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights, Media Defence and the Thomson Reuters Foundation have partnered to conduct a first-ofits-kind review of individual cases of harassment or persecution of lawyers defending journalists.
The research identified over 40 cases of lawyers targeted for defending journalists, consulting with journalists or otherwise defending media freedoms. While the research surveyed the last ten years, most of these attacks happened in the last five years, across 10 countries: Guatemala, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia, Belarus, China, and Hong Kong. Lawyers representing journalists are often simultaneously defending human rights activists and opposition figures, which further contributes to and compounds the risk that such lawyers take.