Globe International NGO has been implementing a project to monitoring violations of free expression and to support the rights of the independent media to help Mongolia’s media achieve greater freedom to play a leading role in the development of democracy.

The project started last October, with financial support from London’s Open Society Institute and in partnership with the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) and the Moscow Center for Journalists in Extreme Situations (CJES).

We have established a monitoring network across Mongolia with 10 staff, a lawyer, an alert coordinator, a journalist and a web editor plus 7 regional monitors in Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan Uul, Arvaikheer, Hovd, Uliastai, Undurkhann and Dalanzadgad, covering 3 of the 21 aimags plus the capital.

Since the network was established, the alerts coordinator has received a total of 18 action alerts from regional monitors. One case where a TV journalist was attacked and three cases where government officials demanded that journalists reveal the source of information were circulated through the IFEX network. For the other cases, action alerts have been distributed through own website.

The right of journalists to protect an information source is not legally guaranteed in Mongolia, so Mongolian journalists are frequently censored and intimidated by government officials. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) issued a media release on March 13, 2006, calling for appropriate legal protection for journalists in Mongolia.

Globe International has been working to promote freedom of information and legal support for the media, issuing media releases on assaults and attacks on journalists, sending letters of complaint to those who have violated the rights of the media and journalists, and informing human right organizations, the media and the public about such violations.

Globe International attended the IFEX general meeting in Brussels, 19-24 February 2006, has been accepted as a member and is now part of the IFEX community. In this way, Globe International is putting Mongolia on the international human rights map, as our alerts and reports will be circulated through the network to tens of thousands of organizations and activists worldwide.
These organizations will be able to use Globe International information to assess the Mongolian government’s performance in the field of free expression, and to use the information as a basis for campaigning and lobbying for improvement in Mongolia.