Meeting at their annual General Assembly on 9 June 2009 in Helsinki, Finland, IPI members called on the European Parliament and governments of the European Union to take the lead in protecting freedom of expression both at home and abroad by abolishing their national criminal defamation and insult laws.

Nearly all of the EU’s 27 members retain laws that impose criminal penalties for slander, libel and insult, and in some countries, defamation of the dead. In many countries, public figures receive more protection than the people they are meant to serve. Defaming nations and national symbols also can be prosecuted.

Such archaic laws have no place in democracies. Undoubtedly, individuals have a right to protect themselves from harm caused by untrue statements. However, civil remedies provide a wholly sufficient and appropriate remedy for such wrongs. Laws that criminalize the offence are unnecessary, and carry the risk of restricting journalistic freedoms.

Excessive penalties – or even the threat of them – unduly restrict free speech. While prison is always an unacceptable penalty, the other possible consequences of a criminal conviction are also problematic. The prospect of high legal fees and a criminal record alone can prove a deterrent to the exercise of media freedom. The criminal process itself can be highly invasive and demeaning.

By failing to modernize their criminal codes, the EU states are also indirectly harming freedom of expression in other parts of the globe. Governments that aggressively pursue journalists with their own criminal defamation laws all too happily note that their laws largely mirror those still on the books in Europe. Protests from the EU are readily dismissed as hypocritical.

IPI members urge the governments of the EU to make use of their status as role models for democratic rights and freedoms, and sweep clean their statutes of these restrictive and outdated laws. Criminal defamation and insult laws designed to protect officials from criticism must become a thing of the past.