HIKMA SUMMIT
OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

We live in a world where, especially in recent years, with the pandemic, wars, AI and the rise of nationalism, time seems to have sped up and events appear less predictable and harder to decipher. It is clear: the international system is struggling to maintain what is by now a world disorder.

 Journalism is one of the tools we can use to try to give shape to chaos, but what weapons does journalism have in the face of all this, to defend itself and the democratic public opinion it helps to create?

According to Anne Bocandé, editorial director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), “authoritarian states, complicit or incompetent political powers, predatory economic actors and poorly regulated online platforms are directly and overwhelmingly responsible for the global decline of press freedom.”

 Here is the first question we might ask ourselves: how much longer will we tolerate the suffocation of journalism, the systematic obstruction of journalists and the continuous erosion of press freedom?

According to the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index, in countries such as Iraq, Sudan and Yemen, recurring conflicts are the main reason for the decline in press freedom. Since October 2023, RSF counts more than 260 journalists killed in Gaza, at least 70 of them while doing their job.

But the rules of war are clear: civilians and infrastructure are not targets, and journalists must be able to do their essential work without intimidation. This makes the ban that prevents international journalists from entering Gaza unacceptable, or at least it should.

A year ago, at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine, urged participants to pressure Israel to allow foreign journalists in, saying that “thanks to them, this genocide in Gaza has become the most documented in history.”

Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has stressed the need for protection and independent access to Gaza, as well as for accountability. According to a CPJ report from February 2026, of the 129 media workers killed in 2025, about two thirds of the cases are attributed to Israel. There were 47 targeted killings, the highest number in ten years, and no one has been brought to justice.

Nasser Abu Bakr, president of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, has reported that in Gaza more than 500 journalists have been injured and over 200 arrested by Israel and subjected to torture, and that relatives of journalists have also been killed or targeted.

The most dangerous places in the world for journalists are reflected in the numbers of the 2026 RSF ranking.

 Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which has continued its war of aggression in Ukraine, remains one of the worst countries for press freedom. Iran also remains near the bottom of the ranking. Georgia, now ranked 135th, has seen press repression intensify in recent years. Saudi Arabia is paying the price for repeated acts of violence by the authorities against journalists in 2025, including the execution of columnist Turki al-Jasser.

The criminalisation of journalism, rooted in circumventing press law and abusing emergency legislation, is proving to be a global phenomenon. This is particularly true in India, Egypt and Israel.

Twenty-five years after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, widening the scope of defence and national security secrets has become a way of banning coverage of matters of public interest in many countries. The trend has gained ground in democracies too, and goes hand in hand with abusive applications of the law against journalists, particularly in the name of the fight against terrorism.

Among the countries closed to the independent press, Russia has become a specialist in using laws against terrorism and extremism to limit press freedom. News professionals who want to keep doing their work have been forced into exile or prison. The same technique of turning national security measures into a weapon is found in Belarus, Myanmar and Nicaragua.

The situation for press freedom in the West is no better. 

The United States has dropped to 64th place in the ranking mentioned above, and in Europe too the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) is “regularly undermined” by national laws, for example in Hungary and Slovakia. The rise of autocratic forces tends to silence and smear the press. 

The question naturally arises: are journalists unsafe only in war zones or areas of open conflict, or in so-called Western countries too? But this is not a problem of journalism; it is a problem of democracy.

Since RSF began publishing its index, the average score of all 180 countries and territories assessed has never been so low. Journalists continue to be killed and imprisoned for their work, and the tactics that undermine press freedom are evolving. Journalism is being suffocated by political rhetoric hostile to journalists, weakened by a struggling media economy and squeezed by laws used as weapons against the press.

The legal indicator, above all, has worsened in 110 of the 180 countries, because of the use of national security laws and of SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation, used against journalists). The expansion of ever more restrictive legal arsenals, in particular those tied to national security policies, has steadily eroded the right to information, even in democratic countries. Journalism is increasingly criminalised worldwide.

Italian journalism is under pressure

Italy ranks 49th in the World Press Freedom Index, a position that has worsened in recent years and is decidedly low for a Western European country. Why?

Sigfrido Ranucci, one of Italy’s best-known investigative journalists and the host of the Rai programme Report, investigates entrepreneurs, politicians and mafiosi, which is why he has a police escort. The need for this protection became evident in October 2025, when a bomb exploded in front of his home. But threats to journalists do not only come from the mafia: Italy is also the European country where journalists face the highest number of defamation lawsuits, which add legal and financial pressure to push them into silence.

Italian media are in troubled waters.

  At the beginning of 2025 it emerged that two journalists from the news site Fanpage had been spied on with spyware made by an Israeli company that sells its services only to government authorities. According to the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), an NGO working against intimidating legal action, Italy tops the European ranking in term of number of SLAPPs, which are often brought by companies or powerful figures against journalists and activists.

Internazionale, an Italian weekly, quotes Vittorio Di Trapani, president of the Italian National Press Federation (FNSI), on the use of SLAPPs: “they serve to silence journalists, and some members of this government also use them, showing great impatience with investigative journalism.”

In Italy defamation is a crime punishable by prison, but in practice cases of this kind against journalists end, at most, with compensation. 

In October 2023, for instance, the writer Roberto Saviano was ordered by a court to pay a fine of one thousand euros (later suspended) after a complaint by Giorgia Meloni, now Italy’s prime minister.

In recent years the political grip on Rai, Italy’s public broadcaster, has also tightened, and the country’s fascist past has become a harder subject to bring up since the current government took office. Three faces seen as close to the centre-left have disappeared from Rai: Fabio Fazio and Luciana Littizzetto, two of its best-known television hosts, left the company because their contracts were not renewed, while Serena Bortone was moved to radio after deciding to read on air a censored text by the writer Antonio Scurati.

Gabriele Nunziati, Brussels correspondent for the Italian news agency Agenzia Nova, lost his job after asking European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho a question about Israel’s responsibility for the reconstruction of Gaza. At a Commission press briefing in Brussels, Nunziati asked: “You’ve repeatedly said that Russia should pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Do you think Israel should also pay for the reconstruction of Gaza, given that it destroyed much of the Strip and its civilian infrastructure?” 

According to the online newspaper Il Post, the journalist received a letter terminating his working relationship with the agency, which did not specify the reasons for the decision.

Agenzia Nova told Fanpage.it that Nunziati’s question was “completely out of place and technically incorrect” and had created “embarrassment for the agency”.

The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) condemned the termination and criticised Agenzia Nova for having censored Nunziati. The FNSI, the EFJ’s Italian affiliate, expressed its support for its colleague, declaring its willingness to back Nunziati in any decision he may take to protect himself. The IFJ-EFJ voiced concern about the deteriorating state of press freedom in Italy. Asking uncomfortable questions is at the core of any journalist’s work; otherwise, rather than an essential tool for building democratic public opinion, journalism becomes just “a guard dog for those in power”.

Public policies have failed to provide a structural solution to the series of challenges, whether physical or legal, that journalists around the world face. In over 80% of countries, protection mechanisms are considered nonexistent or ineffective. Although the European Media Freedom Act guarantees the independence and sustainability of media within the European Union, it is regularly undermined by national legislative projects, as has happened in Hungary and in countries such as Slovakia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.

Effective measures to protect journalists are essential and must be seen as a catalyst for change. This starts with ending the criminalisation of journalism: the misuse of national security laws, SLAPPs, and the systematic obstruction of those who investigate, denounce and name important names. It is clear that current protection mechanisms are not strong enough; international law is being undermined and impunity is widespread. Democracies need solid guarantees and meaningful sanctions. Stating principles is no longer enough. The spread of authoritarianism is not inevitable, but this kind of inaction is a form of approval.

Sources

• Reporters Without Borders      (RSF), 2026      World Press Freedom Index, 2026.

• Committee to Protect      Journalists (CPJ), “Record      number of journalists killed in 2025; Israel responsible for two-thirds of      deaths”, 25      February 2026.

• UN News, “In the Occupied Palestinian      Territory, journalism is ‘both a battlefield and a lifeline’”.

• RSF, “Reign      of terror in Saudi Arabia: the execution of journalist Turki al-Jasser      demands an international response”.

• U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

• Internazionale,      “Il giornalismo italiano è sotto pressione” [Italian      journalism is under pressure], 2 April 2026.

• L’Indipendente,      “Nessuno deve vedere Gaza: Israele rinnova il divieto      all’ingresso dei giornalisti” [No one must see Gaza: Israel renews the      ban on journalists entering], 8 January 2026.

• Fanpage.it,      “‘Perché i soldi per ricostruire Gaza non li mette      Israele?’: giornalista italiano perde lavoro dopo la domanda” [‘Why      isn’t Israel paying to rebuild Gaza?’: Italian journalist loses job after      the question], [add date].

• Federazione      Nazionale della Stampa Italiana (FNSI), “Pone una domanda ‘scomoda’ alla portavoce della      Commissione Ue e perde la collaborazione” [Asks an ‘uncomfortable’      question to the EU Commission spokeswoman and loses his collaboration].

• Il      Post, article on the Nunziati case.

• Il Post, article      on the freelance journalists’ strike, 16 April 2026.

• Today.it, article      on the cuts to Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

• Internazionale, article      on the 27 March 2026 journalists’ strike, 26 March 2026.

• L’Espresso,      “Sette idee” per l’editoria indipendente, 17 September      2026.

• RSF,      report to protect Europe’s public media.

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• Iolanda Cuomo, “La crisi      del giornalismo vista da Bruxelles: cosa è cambiato negli ultimi      trent’anni”     [Journalism’s crisis seen from Brussels: what has changed in the last      thirty years], 14 October 2026.

• Carola      Speranza, “Oltre la crisi delle redazioni” [Beyond the newsroom      crisis], 3 October 2026.

• Dario      Morgante, “‘Il giornalismo non può sopravvivere solo grazie al      sacrificio di chi lo fa’” [‘Journalism cannot survive only thanks to      the sacrifice of those who do it’], 5 October 2026.

• Francesco      Stati, “Sulla      crisi del giornalismo” , editorial, issue 27, September 2026.