Speech by Carles Torner, PEN International. Dr Carles Torner is the Executive Director of PEN International, the international secretariat of 150 PEN centres worldwide which work to promote freedom of expression and literature and defend writers at risk. He is an award-winning Catalan poet and essayist.

Speech by Courtney Radsch, Committee to Protect Journalists. Dr Courtney Radsch is advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists where she serves as chief spokesperson on global press freedom issues for the organization and oversees CPJ’s campaigns on behalf of journalists killed and imprisoned for their work. She has worked as a journalist for the New York Times and the Daily Star in Lebanon and is the author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change (Palgrave Macmilan 2016)

Speech by Scott Griffen. Scott Griffen is deputy director at the International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, publishers and journalists defending press freedom since 1950. He is the author of numerous IPI reports on diverse topics related to press freedom and independent journalism and has led or participated in dozens of IPI press freedom missions around the world. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree from King’s College London.

Speech by Pauline Adès-Mével. Pauline Adès-Mével joined Reporters Without Borders (RSF) as head of its EU-Balkans desk in 2016.  Her job is to monitor the freedom to inform and report violations of the rights of journalists and the media in the European Union’s 28 member states and the six Balkan countries that are candidates for admission to the EU. Prior to this, she worked as a reporter for the Television division of Thomson Reuters in Paris. From 2010 to 2016, she covered politics, sports, entertainment, business and other breaking news across France. From 2006 to 2010 Pauline created and hosted the “JT des JT” on Canal Plus (a daily press review of foreign TV news from all over the world). She also was also an editor of iTélé from 2003 to 2006.