Defending Creative Voices: Artists in Emergencies, Learning from the Safety of Journalists

Artists and cultural professionals often come across significant challenges to their freedom of expression, including violence and harassment – online and offline – legal persecution, detention, imprisonment and, in the worst of cases, murder. Emergency situations can result in additional risks for them, as many become increasingly targeted in connection to the visibility of their work and see their livelihoods impacted upon by income loss and unemployment in the cultural sector.

While the attacks and threats that artists and cultural professionals face during emergencies are similar to those affecting journalists, they do not receive the same level of attention nor access to protection mechanisms and opportunities for assistance. Over the past decades, a strong framework has emerged to advance journalists’ safety at international, regional and national levels, including through legal and regulatory instruments, protection mechanisms, support networks and consistent collective mobilization for their rights. Despite growing awareness of the vulnerability of artists and cultural professionals in emergency contexts and increased efforts to safeguard their rights and ensure their safety, progress in this regard remains comparatively much more incipient.

With the support of UNESCO’s Culture and Communication and Information Sector, and based on a comparative analysis, this study therefore aims to strengthen the protection of artists and cultural professionals during emergencies by drawing lessons from the experience, challenges, and achievements in the field of journalists’ safety. It presents actionable recommendations and identifies areas in which synergies between key stakeholders promoting, respectively, artistic and media freedom could serve to reinforce the protection of both at-risk artists and journalists.