Aiming to support the rights of the independent media so that Mongolian media achieve greater freedom to play a leading role in the development of democracy, the Globe International NGO has been implementing a project to monitor violations of free expression since last October.

We are implementing this project with financial support from London’s Open Society Institute through OSF in Mongolia and in partnership with the Canadian-based International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) and the Moscow Center for Journalists in Extreme Situations (CJES).

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

Since the network was established, the alerts coordinator has received a total of 25 action alerts from regional monitors. Eight cases where a TV journalist was attacked and 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 twice on March 13, 20 June 2006, calling for appropriate legal protection for journalists in Mongolia and urging Mongolian authorities to respect journalists’ rights.

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 and 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.

The Globe International NGO was founded in March 1999 and has successfully implemented more that 40 projects in the field of freedom of expression, freedom of information, independent media.

For further information about our activities and programms you can visit our website www.globeinter.org.mn, www.monitoring.mn