Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world. It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments in the field.
From the streets in Serbia to campuses in the US, students keep protesting. “[B]e on guard,” Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship, cautions the Index readers, “if history tells us anything, when it’s students versus state, it’s rare that the former win.”
On March 8, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate who acted as a spokesperson for pro-Palestine student protesters last spring. Taking him into custody from his university-owned apartment, the agents said they were preparing to deport Khalil, later transferring him to a detention facility in Louisiana.
“Arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes […],” Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director at Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement. “Universities must recognize that these actions pose an existential threat to academic life itself.”
Khalil’s detention follows President Trump’s pledges to combat anti-semitism. “I and many in the Jewish community could not be more deeply troubled by the Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil without due process,” said Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg at a news conference on Monday. “These actions threaten democracy and the rule of law and endanger the entire system of higher education without making Jewish students any safer.”
On Monday, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York blocked Khalil’s deportation in the absence of a court order. At a Wednesday hearing, Khalil’s legal team raised issues of counsel access due to his detention in Louisiana and argued he “was targeted for his advocacy for Palestinian rights.” As of this writing, Khalil’s lawyers state the federal government has not brought any charges against him.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression warned of more speech-based punishment, while CIVICUS, a global civil society alliance, added the US to its 2025 Monitor Watchlist – along with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan, and Serbia – due to threats to freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, and association, among others.
For over 270 years, Columbia has strived to uphold the values essential for a functioning democracy: free speech, open inquiry, and vigorous debate. At his 2025 Reuters Memorial Lecture on March 10, Dr Jelani Cobb, Dean of Columbia Journalism School, spoke of principles as pillars for institutions. “Values are meant to guide us in difficult times – in the easy times we already know what to do,” Dr Cobb said. “The paradox, of course, is that the minute you establish something based upon principle you are confronted by the question of when you will bend for expediency.”
By way of international comparison, in a case on protests “against war for profit,” the Constitutional Court of the Republic of North Macedonia held that the temporary detention of two activists violated their right to freedom of expression and constituted discrimination on the basis of political affiliation. The Court applied domestic and international human rights law to determine that the interference with the activists’ rights was not necessary in a democratic society on the grounds that the right to peaceful assembly protects the dissemination of messages which can shock or insult individuals.
More examples can be found in our Special Collection Paper, which surveyed 178 leading judgments concerning peaceful protests worldwide.
David Kaye, Clinical Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine, former UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and CGFoE expert, has been appointed as the fifteenth member of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, which is the independent advisory body of the Media Freedom Coalition. “David Kaye is a valuable addition to the Panel at a critical time for the protection of media freedom and democratic values globally,” said Baroness Helena Kennedy LT KC, Chair of the High Level Panel. Image credit: International Bar Association
European Court of Human Rights
Yevstifeyev v. Russia
Decision Date: December 3, 2024
The Third Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights found violations of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 8 (right to respect for private life) in a case against Russia concerning homophobic hate speech directed at LGBTI activists. The Court analyzed in this case two different applications regarding similar issues. In the first application, the Court determined that Russian authorities failed to adequately respond to openly homophobic verbal assaults and physical threats made by politician Milonov against LGBTI participants at a 2015 rally—where he called them “perverts,” “scumbags,” “AIDS-ridden,” threatened violence, and directly targeted specific individuals. The Court ruled that domestic authorities at every level—criminal, administrative, and civil—provided inadequate reasoning and failed to properly balance competing Convention rights, focusing exclusively on protecting Milonov’s freedom of expression while disregarding the applicants’ rights and the negative stereotyping. In the second application, regarding a 2020 video depicting a mock “gay hunt,” the Court found the complaint inadmissible. The ECtHR concluded that the video, viewed in context, was “provocative political satire” intended to inspire public debate on proposed constitutional amendments, rather than propagate hate, and thus did not reach the threshold of severity required to affect the private lives of individual LGBTI community members.
Ferreira e Castro da Costa Laranjo v. Portugal (1)
Decision Date: November 5, 2024
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Portugal violated a journalist’s right to freedom of expression through civil and criminal sanctions. A journalist had broadcast, without authorization, images and sound from a criminal hearing of a former government minister in a highly publicized criminal investigation. The Criminal Court of Lisbon fined the journalist for disobedience and ordered her to pay compensation, a decision upheld by the Lisbon Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Portugal. In the civil proceedings, the District Court of Lisbon absolved the journalist and held only the television broadcaster liable for compensation. However, the Lisbon Court of Appeal ruled that she should also be held responsible for non-pecuniary damage, a decision later confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice. The Court found that the Portuguese courts failed to properly balance the journalist’s right to freedom of expression and the then-Minister’s right to privacy and the presumption of innocence. It also considered that the sanctions were disproportionate and unjustified in a democratic society, noting the public interest in the matters discussed in the broadcast.
United Nations Human Rights Committee
Gryk v. Belarus
Decision Date: December 6, 2022
The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) held that Belarus violated Grygory Gryk’s right to freedom of expression, under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), by imposing an administrative fine for participating in a peaceful one-person picket in support of a presidential candidate. Gryk was found guilty under Article 23.34 of the Belarusian Code of Administrative Offences for holding the protest without prior authorization. He argued that the penalty was unnecessary and disproportionate, as his actions posed no threat to public order, national security, or the rights of others. Belarus defended the fine, stating that its regulations on public gatherings were lawful and necessary to maintain public order. The Committee held that Belarus failed to demonstrate how Gryk’s actions violated public order or justified the imposed sanction. The UNHRC emphasized that domestic authorities did not provide specific grounds to justify the necessity of the restriction or prove that the fine was the least intrusive measure available. Consequently, the Committee held that Belarus violated Article 19 of the ICCPR. The UNHRC ordered Belarus to provide Gryk with adequate compensation, including reimbursement of the fine and legal costs. It also called on the State to review its domestic legislation to comply with international human rights standards and prevent future violations.
● US: Knight Institute Urges Court to Restore AP to White House Press Pool. On March 5, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief in The Associated Press v. Budowich – a case that challenges the press pool ban imposed on The Associated Press (AP) by the White House. The Knight Institute argues that the ban, “a viewpoint-based exclusion from a limited public forum,” violates the First Amendment. “The White House’s moves to ban the AP from the press pool based on its editorial decisions are part of this president’s broader attack on the press and free speech,” said Katie Fallow, Knight’s Deputy Litigation Director, “as it attempts to bully media organizations into coverage that only benefits the president.” Read the full intervention here. The Institute’s argument is similar to the one it presented in Knight Institute v. Trump, a case filed during Trump’s first presidential term against the practice of blocking critics from accessing the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account. The courts sided with Knight then.
● Belarus: Experts Mark Second Anniversary of Enforced Disappearance of Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Demand Action. UN experts, including Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, demand that Belarusian authorities disclose the fate and whereabouts of pro-democracy activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski. Marking the second anniversary of Tsikhanouski’s enforced disappearance, the UN experts also drew attention to the urgent cases of other political prisoners – forcibly disappeared and held incommunicado, subjected to ill-treatment and denied essential medical care – like Viktar Babaryka, Mikalai Statkevich, Maryia Kalesnikava, and Maksim Znak, among many others. “We welcome recent steps toward releasing detainees,” the experts stated. “However, this process must not be selective or accompanied by onerous conditions. All political prisoners must be freed immediately, and those responsible for abuses must face justice.”
● Guatemala: CPJ Calls for Release of José Rubén Zamora after Judge Orders the Journalist Back to Jail. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) deplores Judge Erick García’s decision to order the return of Guatemalan investigative journalist José Rubén Zamora to prison this week. Zamora, founder of the newspaper elPeríodico, had spent over 800 days in pre-trial detention before being granted house arrest in October 2024. Rights groups have widely condemned Zamora’s case, which is based on money laundering charges, as politically motivated. This report on the misuse of economic charges to target the press, published jointly by the Inter American Press Association and World Association of News Publishers, analyzes the proceedings against Zamora, “His case comes as part of a slew of concerns over the deterioration of the civic space in Guatemala and the increasing criminalization of journalists covering issues of public interest.”
This section of the newsletter features teaching materials focused on global freedom of expression which are newly uploaded on Freedom of Expression Without Frontiers
The Future of the Media in the Western Balkans and Turkey – Facts and Trends, by Sanela Hodžić and Sandra B. Hrvatin. Published by members of the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media, this report analyzes the state of media and democracy in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey. Based on the map of key indicators and corresponding data, the authors conclude, “as decidedly as ever,” that the region’s media are in a systemic crisis, manifesting in “how they are defined, regulated, owned, financed, and managed.” Among the many factors negatively impacting the media of the Western Balkans and Turkey are journalists’ exposure to pressure and attacks, SLAPPs, small numbers of journalism students, media ownership concentration, lack of transparency, limited representation, political instability, and authoritarianism.
● Call for Applications: 2025 Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute. The renowned Media Policy Summer Institute at Oxford will welcome participants from July 28 to August 8, 2025. Apply by March 21 to receive an early decision (especially if you need a visa to travel to the UK). The final application deadline is April 25.
● Call for Survey Input: OBSERVACOM Investigates Shadowbanning. Have you experienced shadowbanning? OBSERVACOM is inviting organizations and individuals who have experienced practices of reduction of reach on social media platforms without a clear explanation to complete a short survey in Spanish.
● Call for Applications: Re:constitution Fellowships 2025/2026. Re:constitution Fellowship will provide early-career scholars and practitioners with the opportunity to work and publish at the intersection of democracy and the rule of law in Europe from October 2025 to July 2026. Apply by April 3.
This newsletter is reproduced with the permission of Global Freedom of Expression. For an archive of previous newsletters, see here.
This newsletter is such a valuable roundup—thanks for sharing it! It’s honestly refreshing (and necessary) to see global freedom of expression being tracked and reported on with this level of care and consistency. So much is happening around the world that gets drowned out by mainstream headlines, so having all these updates in one place is incredibly useful for anyone trying to stay informed.
What struck me most in this edition was how many different forms suppression can take—from government censorship and legal intimidation to more subtle cultural and institutional pressures. It’s not just about outright bans or arrests anymore—it’s about creating a climate where people are too afraid or exhausted to speak up at all.
Also, kudos to Columbia University and the Global Freedom of Expression team for keeping the focus truly international. Whether it’s a case in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Americas, they remind us that the fight for free speech isn’t just a Western concern—it’s a human one.