Around the world, the law is increasingly being weaponised to silence independent reporting and to compromise journalists’ freedom, wellbeing, and financial security. As ‘lawfare’ escalates in i...
Caoilfhionn Gallagher
Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is an international human rights lawyer and expert in journalists’ safety and media freedom, practising as a barrister from Doughty Street Chambers, London. Over the past 20 years she has acted in many landmark human rights cases in the UK and internationally, before the European Court of Human Rights, international courts and UN bodies. She has acted for, and secured the freedom of, many arbitrarily detained journalists, cartoonists, peaceful protestors and human rights defenders around the world, including in Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
Caoilfhionn has particular expertise in accountability for crimes against journalists. Her current cases in this field include leading the international legal teams for media owner Jimmy Lai, imprisoned in Hong Kong; for over 150 BBC News Persian journalists, targeted extraterritorially by Iran; for the bereaved family of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, assassinated in Malta in 2017; and leading (jointly with colleague Amal Clooney) the international legal team for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist in the Philippines. Caoilfhionn has given expert evidence on accountability for crimes against journalists and gender-based violence against women journalists to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Jineth Bedoya v. Colombia), to Parliamentary inquiries in the UK, Australia and the Council of Europe, and to UNESCO (on targeting of women journalists online).
Caoilfhionn is also Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection; sits part-time as a Coroner in England and Wales; and is on the UK Advisory Board of RSF (Reporters Without Borders). 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.”
Conspiracy to commit journalism? The trial of Jimmy Lai and media freedom in Hong Kong
IJF24 is taking place during Jimmy Lai's trial in Hong Kong under the much criticised National Security Law, imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020. Jimmy Lai, the renowned publisher, writer, pro-dem...
Media freedom, democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong: the case of Jimmy Lai and Apple Daily
Moderator: Baroness Helena Kennedy KC Speakers: Sebastien Lai, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, Jason Rezaian Jimmy Lai is a 75-year-old British citizen based in Hong Kong. He is a renowned media owner, wr...
At the time of her death, Daphne Caruana Galizia was facing 48 civil and criminal lawsuits in Malta, had her bank accounts frozen, and was receiving a steady barrage of threats from London libel lawye...
As threats to independent journalism continue to accelerate, with efforts to control the free flow of accurate, unbiased information around the world, the law is being weaponised to compromise journal...
The law plays a key role in protecting freedom of speech. However, at the same time, laws ranging from anti-terrorism to criminal defamation and cybercrime are increasingly being used to silence journ...
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