UK Media Freedom Forum

SPEAKERS

DAY 1

Vafa Fati-Zade

Trustee, Justice for Journalists Foundation

Vafa Fati-Zade is Trustee at the Justice for Journalists Foundation (JFJ) and an international Project Manager and Lawyer. She has extensive experience in administering and managing large grant portfolios with the major US and European donor organisations. She has vast academic and practical knowledge of monitoring and reporting on human rights violations, democratic development, conducting trial monitoring, profiling political prisoners and carrying out election monitoring. In the course of her career Vafa worked with Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), holding various posts in the Missions in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Office in Baku; the headquarters of the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) in Rome, Italy; Brussels-based International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), and consulted Media Law Defence Initiative (MLDI) and International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) in London. She joined the Justice for Journalists Foundation in 2020 to design and launch Orkhan Dzhemal Media Safety Academy and help manage JFJ’s journalistic grant programme. Vafa Fati-zade has an LLM degree in International Human Rights from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom and an MA degree in Social and Public Policy with Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies minor from Duquesne University in the US. 

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC

Human Rights Lawyer

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers. Over the past 25 years she has acted in many landmark cases on human rights issues, from representing bereaved families of the Hillsborough Disaster and the 7/7 London Bombings; to bringing groundbreaking cases which changed the law on the rights of children in custody in England and Wales; to overturning the death penalty for an Iranian women’s rights rapper, Toomaj Salehi. She has expertise in journalists’ safety, media freedom, the right to protest, children’s rights, women’s rights, and State accountability.

Caoilfhionn’s work for wrongfully imprisoned people has seen her take on governments around the world, and she has secured the freedom of over 85 imprisoned journalists, bloggers, cartoonists, businesspeople and activists held in countries including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Russia and Equatorial Guinea. She is an expert on accountability for crimes against journalists and has given testimony on these issues to Parliaments in the UK, Canada, US, Australia, to the Council of Europe, and she has given expert evidence before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on risks to women journalists. Her cases on media freedom include leading the international legal teams for the bereaved family of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the assassinated Maltese journalist; for Jimmy Lai, the British publisher imprisoned in Hong Kong; for hundreds of BBC News Persian and Iran International journalists targeted extra-territorially by Iran; and for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist from the Philippines.

Caoilfhionn has acted in many leading cases involving cross-border issues between Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and cases involving the rights of the Irish community in Britain. This includes leading the legal team for the family of Margaret Keane, an Irish family denied the right to an Irish language gravestone by the Church of England; acting for victims of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Birmingham; and bringing a series of cases which changed the law on abortion rights for women and girls in Northern Ireland.

Alongside her legal practice, Caoilfhionn is also a Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, an Adjunct Full Professor at University College Dublin and a Board Member of the Committee to Protect Journalists. She was previously a Coroner, Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, and a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford. She was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2017 for her “outstanding commitment to enabling the Human Rights Act’s protections” for devising ‘Act for the Act,’ a mass advertising campaign to tell positive human rights stories. In 2023 she was awarded the President of Ireland’s Distinguished Service Award for her work, and in 2025 she was awarded Irish Tatler’s International Woman of the Year Award.

Minister Chris Elmore MP

Chris Elmore is the Labour MP for Bridgend, and has been an MP continually since 5 May 2016. He currently holds the Government post of Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office).

Simon Papuashvili

Programme Director, Eastern Europe/South Caucasus at International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR)

Simon Papuashvili is a Programme Director at the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), where he leads the organisation’s work on Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Russia. He is responsible for the development and management of IPHR’s regional programmes and oversees its work on countering transnational repression, including investigating patterns of repression, supporting affected communities, and engaging with European governments to address legislative and policy gaps.

Aidar Botagarov

Consultant, Office of the OSCE Representative on the Freedom of the Media

Olga Rudenko is the chief editor of the Kyiv Independent, an award-winning media start-up launched in November 2021 by the former editorial team of the Kyiv Post. Olga is the former deputy chief editor of the Kyiv Post. She has written for global publications, and was a fellow at the Chicago Booth School of Business in 2021. She was featured on the cover of Time magazine in May 2022 as one of the publication’s Next Generation Leaders, and won the Women of Europe award in the “Woman in Action” category in December 2022. Olga Rudenko is the author of the Ukraine Weekly newsletter, which focuses on key events that have shaped the week.

Alsu Kurmasheva

Press Freedom Advocate, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Alsu Kurmasheva is a Press Freedom Advocate and veteran journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who, for more than 25 years, has given voice to ethnic and religious minorities in Russia, fearlessly reporting on the erosion of their languages, cultures, and rights under an increasingly repressive regime. In October 2023, while visiting her elderly mother in Kazan, Alsu was detained, charged with spreading “false information” about the Russian military for her editorial work on a book documenting Russian families’ opposition to the war, and ultimately sentenced in a closed trial to six and a half years in a penal colony after 288 days in harsh conditions. Alsu was released on August 1, 2024, in the largest U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange since the Cold War alongside Evan Gershkovich and more than a dozen Russian political prisoners. Since returning home, Alsu has emerged as a powerful voice for imprisoned journalists and silenced communities, speaking worldwide about the personal toll of wrongful detention and the urgent need to protect minority voices, while continuing—guided by her lifelong conviction that truthful reporting is the strongest antidote to authoritarian power—to mentor younger reporters and advance RFE/RL’s mission of delivering facts to those denied them.

Renaud Gaudin De Villaine

Media Freedom and Safety of Journalists Adviser, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Renaud has been working for more than ten years with OHCHR where he held various positions, including desk officer on African countries, field coordinator in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and legal advisor to the commissions of inquiry on Eritrea and Burundi. He is currently serving as advisor on media freedom and the safety of journalists. Before joining OHCHR, Renaud worked for non-governmental organizations both in Brussels and in Liberia. He holds a master’s degree on human rights and humanitarian law at the University Paris II Panthéon-Assas.

Michela Wrong

Journalist and Author

Michela Wrong has spent more than three decades writing about Africa, first as a Reuters correspondent based in Cote d’Ivoire and former Zaire, and then as the Financial Times Africa correspondent, based in Kenya. Her books include “In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz”, the story of Mobutu Sese Seko, “I Didn’t do it for You”, a history of the Red Sea nation of Eritrea, “It’s Our Turn to Eat”, an examination of Kenyan corruption, and “Borderlines”, a novel set in the Horn of Africa. Her most recent book, “Do Not Disturb”, is a scathing assessment of Rwanda’s ruling party and President Paul Kagame. It has made her the target of sustained online harassment by regime loyalists.

Izzy Cutts

Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Manager, The Foreign Policy Centre

Izzy Cutts joined the Foreign Policy Centre as Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Manager in September 2025. She leads FPC’s parliamentary engagement, connects policy makers with FPC’s network of experts, supports the development of policy recommendations, and facilitates informed public debate on key foreign policy issues. Izzy previously worked as a Parliamentary Assistant before joining the UK Joint Delegation to NATO in Brussels with the Foreign Office. She led on gender and human security policy, representing the UK in negotiations on NATO’s first policy on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Action Plan. She also managed engagement with NATO partner countries, coordinating democratic institution building projects in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, and demilitarisation projects in the Western Balkans. She holds a BA (Hons) in History of Art from University College London and a master’s degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action from Sciences Po Paris. She was awarded a full scholarship for postgraduate studies from the Leverhulme Trust.

Sir John Whittingdale

Chair of the Media Freedom APPG

Sir John Whittingdale is a Conservative MP for Maldon. He was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport between 2015-16, and also took on a role as Minister of State in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport several times in the years that followed, most recently in 2023. He has been the Conservative Member of Parliament for Maldon since 1992 and is a long-time chair for the APPG on Media Freedom. From 2005-15, he chaired the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. His time in government was marked by significant events, including his involvement in high-profile inquiries into press ethics and the phone hacking scandal.

Sergiy Tomilenko

President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine; Member of the Steering Committee of the European Federation of Journalists

Sergiy Tomilenko is the President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU). With over two decades of experience in journalism and media advocacy, Tomilenko has been at the forefront of defending press freedom and journalists’ rights in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Tomilenko has led NUJU in implementing crucial initiatives to support journalists during wartime:

  1. Establishing a network of Journalists’ Solidarity Centers across Ukraine, providing safety equipment, training, and psychological support to media workers in conflict zones.
  2. Coordinating with international partners to deliver protective gear, including bulletproof vests and helmets, to frontline reporters.
  3. Launching programs to support local newspapers in frontline areas, ensuring communities maintain access to vital information.
  4. Advocating for the safety of journalists at national and international levels, documenting attacks on press freedom.
  5. Organizing legal webinars to address the changing landscape of media law under martial law.

 

As a member of the Steering Committee of the European Federation of Journalists, Tomilenko actively works to bring international attention to the challenges faced by Ukrainian media during the war. His leadership has been instrumental in maintaining the resilience of Ukraine’s journalistic community in the face of unprecedented challenges.

Liz Gibbons

Executive Editor, World Service Long Form and Investigations

Liz Gibbons is acting Controller of Global Journalism at the World Service and Executive Editor of the BBC World Service’s Long Form and Investigations Department. Her teams produce the BBC Eye investigations strand, Global Eye on BBC Two, as well as a range of other documentaries and podcasts, and short form digital investigations focused on exposing disinformation campaigns across the globe. Previously Liz ran the BBC’s World News TV channel and is a former Deputy Editor of BBC Newsnight.

Amy Brouillette

Director of Advocacy, International Press Institute

Amy Brouillette is the Director of Advocacy at IPI, where she leads the organisation’s global advocacy strategies and campaigns. She has more than a decade of experience supporting and defending freedom of the press and independent journalism. She currently serves as a co-chair of the Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network, which provides advice to the MFC on press freedom cases for action. She has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a master’s degree in history from Central European University in Budapest.

Tarja Turtia

Chief of the Section for Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists, UNESCO

Tarja Turtia is Chief of the Section for Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists at UNESCO. She manages UNESCO’s global efforts to advance freedom of expression, strengthen the safety of journalists, combat impunity, and promote information integrity in an increasingly polarized, digital, and AI-driven information environment. She works closely with governments, media actors, civil society, the private sector, and the UN system to translate international norms into policy action, capacity-building, and sustainable multi-stakeholder partnerships. With over 20 years of experience across human rights , media policy, and technology, she has held senior roles at UNESCO, shaping global policy responses to emerging threats to media freedom and information integrity.

Professor Can Yeğinsu

Deputy Chair, High Level Panel of Legal Experts

Professor Can Yeginsu is an international human rights lawyer and currently serves as the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom. The High Level Panel is the independent advisory body to the Media Freedom Coalition of States. Professor Yeginsu is a practising English barrister who is recognised as one of the United Kingdom’s leading lawyers in the fields of civil liberties, human rights, and international law. Professor Yeginsu currently represents (with Amal Clooney and Caoilfhionn Gallagher) Nobel Peace Laureate, Maria Ressa, and has acted as lead counsel for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in cases before the European Court of Human Rights. He has advised numerous media companies including Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and Vice.

Professor Yeginsu teaches international law at Columbia Law School and Georgetown University Law Centre. He is a Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow at the International Claims and Reparations Project at Columbia Law which is currently advising the Government of Ukraine.

Katja Pehrman

Ambassador for Human Rights and Disability Inclusion of Finland, Co-Chair of the Media Freedom Coalition

Previously, she worked as Senior Advisor at UN Women (2017-2024), responsible for issues related to enhancing gender parity and equality. She was actively involved in implementing and promoting the measures of the UN Secretary-General’s System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity in the UN System. She was also the Focal Point for Women in the UN System, responsible for leading and coordinating the work of 650 Gender Focal Points across the globe.

Ms. Pehrman has served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Finland to the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Vienna (2013-2017). In that capacity, she chaired the Human Dimension Committee of the Organization. Moreover, she was one of the initiators of the OSCE Wide Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security and Co-founder of the OSCE Group of Friends of Mediation. She was also Coordinator of the Helsinki +40 process related to the protracted conflicts.

Ambassador Pehrman has previously served as the Chief of Cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland. Furthermore, she has discharged various tasks at the Political Department of the Ministry, including as the Adviser to the General Director and the Under-Secretary of State, working predominantly with security policy and related issues.

Ambassador Pehrman has served at diplomatic missions abroad, such as at the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN in New York (2003-2007), handling, amongst others, EU Presidency tasks. Moreover, she worked at Finland’s Permanent Mission to the OSCE in Vienna during Finland’s Chairpersonship of the OSCE in 2008 (2007-2010).

Ms. Pehrman has more than 20 years of experience in multilateral diplomacy, international negotiations and leadership, throughout which enhancing comprehensive security issues and human rights have constantly been at the forefront of her work.

Nik Williams

Policy and Advocacy Officer, Index on Censorship and Co-Chair of UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition

Nik Williams is Policy and Campaigns Officer at Index on Censorship and co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition. He is a freedom of expression advocate based in Glasgow, with expertise on SLAPPs, online free expression, digital rights and transnational repression. At the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), he coordinated the inaugural year of the Media Freedom Rapid Response, which responds to violations of media freedom in Europe. Previously, Nik led Scottish PEN’s campaigning and advocacy, focusing on anti-SLAPP, free expression, digital rights and surveillance policy.

Charlie Holt

CliDef and Co-Chair of UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition

Charlie Holt is co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition and the European Head of Global Climate Legal Defence (CliDef), an organisation set up to support climate activists facing SLAPPs and other legal threats. He previously advised on legal strategy for Greenpeace International, where he led the organisation’s SLAPP resilience strategy, including its response to two aggressive large-scale SLAPPs targeting Greenpeace entities in the USA. Having helped to set up the US anti-SLAPP coalition Protect the Protest in 2018, Charlie facilitated the formation of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) and later sat on the European Commission’s Expert Group on SLAPPs.

Rupert Cowper-Coles

Head of Media, Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP

Rupert Cowper-Coles is Head of RPC’s Media team, he is an experienced data protection, media and content litigator, and expert in defamation, privacy and other media rights, including malicious falsehood, harassment, freedom of information and SLAPPs. He represents publishers and data controllers, including media organisations, online platforms, broadcasters, NGOs, book publishers, freelance journalists and charities.

Sirin Kale

Investigative journalist, The Guardian

Sirin Kale is an investigations correspondent for the Guardian newspaper, based in London. Previously she was a feature writer for the newspaper. She has won two British Journalism awards for best feature writer (2024) and arts and entertainment journalism (2021) and was an Orwell Prize finalist in 2021 for her reporting on the Covid pandemic. She hosted the number one investigative podcast Can I Tell You A Secret? for the Guardian, which was later turned into a number one Netflix documentary, and co-hosted the number one podcast Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV for the BBC. In 2026 she was a co-recipient of the Woman of the Year award from Women in Journalism in recognition of her involvement in the Guardian’s successful defence of its reporting following a libel suit brought by the actor Noel Clarke, following an investigation she co-authored with Lucy Osborne in 2021 into Clarke’s alleged sexual misconduct. In 2025, with Lucy Osborne, she co-hosted The Birth Keepers, a Guardian investigative podcast about the Free Birth Society, which went to number one in the US and UK podcast series charts.

Joshi Herrmann

Founder and Editor, Mill Media

Joshi Herrmann is the founder of Mill Media, a local news startup which publishes long form stories and high quality local journalism in six UK cities, including The Mill in Manchester and The Londoner in London. The company began as a single subscriber-funded newsletter in Manchester in 2020 and has since received investment from a range of backers including CNN chief executive Sir Mark Thompson and Cambridge economist Dame Diane Coyle. Mill Media is best known for its investigative journalism, and had two stories listed for last year’s Paul Foot Award. Joshi and his colleague Mollie Simpson won a British Journalism Award last year for their investigation into corruption at the University of Greater Manchester, a story which has prompted a police investigation into alleged ‘bribery and fraud’. In the past, Joshi has reported for The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and The London Evening Standard.

Miranda Patrucic

Editor-in-chief, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)

Miranda Patrucic joined OCCRP in 2006 and was promoted to editor in chief in 2023. She oversees editorial operations for OCCRP’s global newsroom, including 50+ editors across six continents and the production of OCCRP’s investigations and content.

Patrucic was one of the first employees at OCCRP, beginning in Sarajevo as the organization’s first fact-checker before moving on to become a researcher, reporter, trainer, and editor. She oversaw work in the Balkans and became known for her reporting about the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan after her friend and investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova was sentenced to jail there in 2015.

In 2018, she created an innovative program in Central Asia using in-depth reporting fellowships to partner with local journalists and publish investigations from the closed countries of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, as well as from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

She has worked on many investigations which resulted in worldwide impact, including stories that exposed billions in telecom bribes in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and uncovered hidden assets of Azerbaijan’s and Montenegro’s ruling elites.

She oversaw the award-winning Plunder and Patronage in the Heart of Central Asia and The Matraimov Kingdom series of stories, which led to protests that eventually brought down a government in Kyrgyzstan. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and worked on the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, the FinCEN Files, and the Pandora Papers. She was also a key part of other global collaborations led by OCCRP including the Russian Asset Tracker, Suisse Secrets, and the Azerbaijani and Russian Laundromats.

She is the recipient of many awards, including One World Media’s International Journalist of the Year, the Knight International Journalism Award, the Global Shining Light Award, the IRE Tom Renner Award, the Daniel Pearl Award, and the European Press Prize.

Professor Mel Bunce

Director, Centre for Journalism and Democracy, City St George's, University of London

Mel Bunce is Professor of International Journalism and Politics at City St George’s, University of London. Her research examines international news, media freedom, and the relationship between journalism and democracy. She is currently the Deputy Dean of the School of Communication & Creativity at City St George’s, University of London, and she was previously the Head of City’s renowned Department of Journalism. Mel holds a Doctorate in Politics from the University of Oxford, and is a Senior Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Association.

Professor Julie Posetti

Chair, Centre for Journalism and Democracy

Julie Posetti (PhD) is a multi-award-winning, internationally published Australian-British journalist and academic. She is Director of the Information Integrity Initiative, a project of TheNerve – the digital forensics lab established by the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist Maria Ressa. Posetti is also Professor of Journalism and Chair of the Centre for Journalism and Democracy at City St George’s, University of London. Additionally, she serves on the board of the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM). Prof. Posetti is has led several major UN-commissioned studies in the fields of disinformation, freedom of expression, gender, and the safety of journalists and she is recognised as an expert in these areas by various UN agencies, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe. She was the lead researcher and lead author of The Chilling reports (UNESCO: 2021-2022), the OSCE’s Guidelines for Monitoring Online Violence Against Female Journalists (2023), and The Tipping Point: The Chilling Escalation of Online Violence Against Women in the Public Sphere (UN Women: 2025). She was also co-editor of Journalism, Fake News and Disinformation (UNESCO: 2018) and Balancing Act: Countering Digital Disinformation While Respecting Freedom of Expression (UNESCO-ITU: 2020). A member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Future Council for Information Integrity, Prof. Posetti also sits on the Advisory Board of the Global Partnership for Action on Online Gender Based Abuse. And, she is a Research Associate with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford where she previously led the Journalism Innovation Project. Prior to joining TheNerve, Prof. Posetti was Global Director of Research at ICFJ. Her journalism has been published by The Guardian, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, the BBC, the ABC, and the Sydney Morning Herald, among others.

Professor Jane Martinson

Marjorie Deane Professor of Financial Journalism at City St George’s, University of London, a Guardian columnist, and broadcaster

Professor Jane Martinson is the Marjorie Deane Professor of Financial Journalism at City St George’s, University of London, a Guardian columnist, and broadcaster. She is a director of the Scott Trust, owner of the Guardian newspaper group, and a member of the Observer’s Editorial Standards Board. A senior journalist for many years, she is also the author of the award-winning book, ‘You May Never See Us Again: The Barclay Dynasty’, published in 2023.

Professor Karen Fowler-Watt

Head of the Journalism Department, City St George's, University of London

Karen Fowler-Watt is Head of the Journalism Department at City St George’s, University of London and Professor of Journalism and Global Narratives. A former senior BBC journalist and a trustee of the European Centre for Journalism and Trauma (formerly Dart), her research focuses on building resilience in journalists to mis- and dis- information and through trauma awareness.  Karen is editor of the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Journalism Education and co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation.

Baroness Helena Kennedy LT KC

Director, IBAHRI and Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts

Baroness Helena Kennedy LT KC is one of the country’s most distinguished lawyers. Currently, she is the Director of the International Bar Association’s Institute of Human Rights. She has been a member of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom – the independent advisory body to the Media Freedom Coalition of States – since 2019 and was appointed Chair in 2024. Born and brought up in Glasgow, she is a member of the Bar, a King’s Counsel, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn, an Honorary Writer to the Signet and the recipient of 42 Honorary Degrees from many universities including those of Glasgow and Edinburgh in recognition of work on women and the law and on widening participation in higher education. She was created a life peer in 1997 and has been a strong advocate for social justice and the rule of law in the House of Lords. She has recently been awarded the Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in Scotland. Over the last thirty years she has been at different times Chancellor of Oxford Brooke’s University, Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, President of the School of Oriental and African Studies and Principal of Mansfield College Oxford. She was also Founder of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford in 2018. Helena Kennedy’s public service has covered many fields. She is President of Justice; the law reform think tank. She is also currently working for the President of Ukraine on war crimes and trying to recover the thousands of children who have been abducted from Ukraine by Russian forces.

DAY 2

Susan Coughtrie

Executive Director, The Foreign Policy Centre and Co-Chair of UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition

Susan Coughtrie is Director at the Foreign Policy Centre. Susan joined FPC in 2020 to lead the Unsafe for Scrutiny project, which examines risks and threats to journalists investigating financial crime and corruption. The findings of this research led Susan to co-found the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition in January 2021, which she continues to co-chair. Susan has undertaken a variety of consultancy work in the media sphere, having previously worked at the international free expression organisation ARTICLE 19 from 2012-2018, and as an advisor to the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) from 2019-2022. Susan is also a Trustee for committee for the Campaign for Freedom of Information in Scotland (CFoIS).

Emily Thornberry MP

Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee

Emily Thornberry has been the MP for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005, and in 2024 was elected Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Previously she served in various Shadow Cabinet roles including Shadow Attorney General (2011-2014; 2021-2024), Shadow Foreign Secretary (2016-2020) and Shadow First Secretary of State (2017-2020).

Rebecca Vincent

Media Freedom Expert

Rebecca Vincent is a media freedom expert, human rights campaigner and former diplomat. As the former Director of Campaigns for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and in her prior work on human rights issues in Azerbaijan, Rebecca has led many high profile global campaigns and NGO coalitions. She has spoken at fora from the United Nations to the UK parliament and frequently writes and comments in the media.

Hannah Perry

Director of Digital Policy, DEMOS

Hannah is the Director of Demos Digital, the specialist digital policy hub based at Demos, the cross-party thinktank. Demos Digital focuses on strengthening resilient information ecosystems and enabling more trustworthy technology in order to upgrade the UK’s democracy. It is home to the Epistemic Security programme and Network – a policy platform for collective efforts to protect democracy by tackling the vulnerabilities within and threats to our information supply chains. Demos is currently calling for greater protections against online information threats via the Elections Bill, a more independent BBC and stronger crisis resilience as well as a cross-sector AI Bill and UK Declaration of Digital Rights. Hannah is a former Research & Innovation Director from the domains of research, social behaviour change communications and education both in the UK, East Africa and Asia Pacific. She is a qualified secondary school English teacher (PGCE), has a SOAS MA in Migration & Diaspora Studies and an MSc on the Social Science of the Internet from the Oxford Internet Institute.

Peter Geoghegan

Founder and Editor, Democracy for Sale

Peter Geoghegan is the founder and editor of Democracy for Sale, an award-winning investigative journalism outfit dedicated to uncovering dark money and hidden influence in British politics. His work has appeared in numerous national and international titles, including the New York Times, the London Review of Books and the Guardian. His most recent book, Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics, was a Sunday Times bestseller.

Mark Stephens CBE

Partner at the UK law firm Howard Kennedy, and Co-Chair of the International Bar Associations Human Rights Institute Council

Mark has undertaken some of the most important cases in the United Kingdom and around the world. His practice focus spans multi-jurisdictional, appellate and complex litigation, constitutional and human rights cases. 

Mark chairs a number of bodies including, Internews, the Management Committee of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy Wolfson College, Oxford Centre for Socio Legal Studies and the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. He is former chair of the Contemporary Art Society, Global Network Initiative, Global Witness the University of East London the Design Artists Copyright Society. And former President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association.

He additionally sits on the board as a Trustee of Index of Censorship, the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Human Dignity Trust.

Carole Cadwalladr

Investigative journalist

Carole Cadwalladr is a journalist for the Guardian and Observer in the United Kingdom. She worked for a year with whistleblower Christopher Wylie to publish her investigation into Cambridge Analytica, which she shared with the New York Times. The investigation resulted in Mark Zuckerberg being called before Congress and Facebook losing more than $100 billion from its share price. She has also uncovered multiple crimes committed during the European referendum and evidence of Russian interference in Brexit.

Jenna Corderoy

Investigative reporter, Democracy for Sale

Jenna Corderoy is an investigative reporter for Democracy for Sale, a newsletter dedicated to revealing how dark money and hidden influence threaten our democracy. She specialises in obtaining documents under the Freedom of Information Act, and has brought several successful FOIA challenges at tribunal.

Ed Siddons

Senior Reporter, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Ed Siddons is an award-winning senior reporter at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism covering the ways in which the City of London facilitates transnational corruption and organised crime. His work has been published by the Sunday Times, Guardian Long Read, Observer, Economist, Politico, Times and other outlets. He formerly produced investigations for Channel 4 Dispatches and BBC Panorama. 

Gill Phillips

Editorial Legal Consultant

Gill Phillips is a solicitor who works as an editorial legal consultant for a number of NGOs and not-for-profits, advising on a range of content-related matters including defamation, privacy, contempt of court and reporting restrictions. For over 10 years she was the Director of Editorial Legal Services at The Guardian News and Media (GNM). In that capacity she was involved in the Trafigura super injunction case, and has advised GNM publications on Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, and various big data leak stories such as the Panama and Paradise Papers. She also co-authors the University of Law Employment Law handbook.

William Horsley

Co-founder and director, International Director, Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM)

UK Chairman of the Association of European Journalists (AEJ); co-founder of the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) at the University of Sheffield; former BBC foreign correspondent and TV & Radio programme presenter; author of the OSCE Safety of Journalists Guidebooks and consultant to UNESCO and the Council of Europe; co-author of Who Controls the Narrative? Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the Commonwealth (2025); member of the RSF London Bureau Advisory Board.

Jamie Wiseman

Senior Europe Advocacy Officer, International Press Institute

Jamie Wiseman is a media freedom advocate at the International Press Institute (IPI), a global media freedom organisation based in Vienna. As Senior Europe Advocacy Officer, he heads IPI’s Europe advocacy team and coordinates the organisation’s EU policy work in Brussels. He is specialised on topics such as media capture, impunity for attacks on the press, and spyware attacks on journalists. A former newspaper journalist in the UK, where he grew up, he now helps IPI’s global network of journalists defending media freedom and independent journalism wherever they are threatened.

Felicity Garvey

UK Advocacy Officer, Reporters Without Borders

Felicity Garvey is RSF’s UK Advocacy Officer. Felicity has a background in advocacy, research and international programme coordination, having previously worked for Amjad and Suha Bseisu Foundation, the Council for Arab British Understanding, and Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps. She has degrees from Cambridge University in Politics and International Relations, Management Studies and Development Studies.

Franz Wild

CEO and Editor-in-chief, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Franz is TBIJ’s CEO and editor-in-chief. Before being appointed as TBIJ’s editor in 2022, Franz led the Bureau’s Enablers team, which landed front-page splashes in the New York Times and Sunday Times, and helped prompt backbench MPs to push for measures to curb ‘Lawfare’ by private investigators working for oligarchs and autocrats. Before that, Franz spent 13 years as a reporter for Bloomberg, covering everything from politics to economics and mining in west, central and southern Africa, as well as London. He has led investigations into grand corruption, fraud, insider trading and everything in between. Franz’s subjects have included giant commodity corporations, New York hedge funds and a string of colourful billionaires. He has won several prizes for his work, including at the British Journalism Awards, and was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist. Authorities in the UK, US and elsewhere have opened criminal investigations into some of his subjects after his articles were published.

Meera Selva

Chief Executive, Internews Europe

Meera Selva is chief executive of Internews Europe a not-for-profit organisation which supports independent media in over 100 countries 

Meera was previously the Deputy Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and is a co-founder of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network.

She is an experienced journalist who has reported from the field across Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, including several years at the Associated Press. 

She is also a senior research associate of the Reuters Institute and an associate fellow of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford, as well as a member of the Center for Economic Policy Research. Her research focuses on issues of press freedom, diversity in newsrooms, and media sustainability.

Rebecca Whittington

Online Safety Editor, Reach PLC

Dr Rebecca Whittington is the Online Safety Editor for Reach Plc, the UK’s largest commercial news publisher, with more than 60 local news titles alongside national brands including the Mirror and Express. She was appointed into the role, which was the first of its kind established in the UK, to protect journalists from online harassment and harm. Rebecca also writes about online threats, campaigns for the online safety of women in journalism and sits on the advisory committee for Women in Journalism and the employers’ sub-committee of the National Committee for the Safety of Journalists. Her podcast, Go Doxx Yourself, which investigates the human stories behind cyber nightmares was recommended by the Radio Times in 2025.  Alongside her work at Reach, Rebecca also lectures at the University of Lancashire on its Journalism Innovation and Leadership MA Programme.

Deniz Wagner

Adviser, Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media

Deniz Wagner is adviser to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, leading the office’s work on media freedom, democracy and security. Deniz led the OSCE’s first project on Artificial Intelligence and Freedom of Expression, was rapporteur to the OSCE Advisory Group of Eminent Experts on Freedom of the Media, and co-author of the report ‘Can there be Security without Media Freedom?’. She has steered projects establishing independent oversight bodies for the media industry, supported legal reform to enhance media pluralism in Europe, and developed human rights-based guidance to addressing disinformation in the digital age. Previously, Deniz worked in strategic communications and was a Senior Adviser for Human Rights at the Austrian Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs.

Carlos Gaio

CEO, Media Defence

Carlos is the CEO of Media Defence. Prior to joining the organisation, he worked at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and for human rights NGOs in the UK and in Brazil.

Barbara Trionfi

Principle Adviser to Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media, OSCE

Barbara Trionfi is the Principal Adviser to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. She previously served as Executive Director of the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, journalists and media executives dedicated to promoting media freedom and independent journalism. With an academic background in international relations and human rights, Barbara has taught courses at Webster University, Vienna in Media Ethics, Media Literacy and Cultural Diversity and the Media. She recently carried out research in the field of climate and environmental journalism. Barbara was awarded a Decoration of Merit in Gold by the Republic of Austria in 2022 for her efforts in support of freedom of expression and safety of journalists.

Stefan Kossoff

Head of Democratic Governance, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)

Stefan Kossoff is Head of Democratic Governance at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).  Before taking on this role in June 2025, Stefan was Development Director at British Embassy in Kyiv, where he led the UK’s humanitarian and recovery effort in Ukraine. Prior to that, he was Development Director in the Caribbean and UK Director of the Caribbean Development Bank. Stefan also served as Head of Profession for Governance at the then Department for International Development (DFID) for four years. He is a specialist in governance issues and a champion for work around thinking and working politically in programme and policy work.

Giulia Lucchese

Co-Secretary CDMSI, Council of Europe

Giulia Lucchese is a Legal Adviser in the Council of Europe’s Freedom of Expression and CDMSI Division. She serves as Co-Secretary to the Steering Committee on Media and Information Society (CDMSI) and previously acted as Secretary to several expert committees. In this role, she supported the drafting of key standard-setting instruments, including the Guidance Note on the Implications of Generative Artificial Intelligence for Freedom of Expression, the Recommendation on Countering the Use of Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation and the Recommendation on Combating Hate Speech.

Jan Braathu

Special Representative on Freedom of the Media, OSCE

Ambassador Jan Braathu is the sixth OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, appointed in December 2024.

Prior to his appointment, Braathu served as Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia from January 2021 to December 2024 and Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo from October 2016 until December 2020.

Previously, he was Norway’s Ambassador to Kosovo and Albania, and Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. His other assignments have included serving as Deputy Director General and Head of the Division for Western Balkan Affairs(2000-2006). Braathu served as an Adviser on Balkan Affairs (1996-2000), and was also working with the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s OSCE Chairpersonship-in-Office Section from 1998 to 2000 on Western Balkan issues. He held the role of First Secretary and Acting Counsellor for Economic Affairs at the Royal Norwegian Embassy to the Court of St. James’s from 1993 to 1996. He was also First Secretary at the Royal Norwegian Embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from 1990 to 1993.

Edward Lucas

Writer and consultant specialising in European and transatlantic security

Edward Lucas is a writer and consultant specialising in European and transatlantic security. His expertise also includes energy, cyber-security, espionage, information warfare and Russian foreign and security policy. Formerly a senior editor at The Economist, he is a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Edward is the author of five books, including The New Cold War. He has worked as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Moscow and the Baltic states and lives in London.