By Anne Kauranen
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finnish, Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic unions will quit a global media federation on Tuesday in protest at “corruptive activity”, including most recently allowing Russian state media journalists in Ukraine to stay as members, the Finnish union said.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which represents 600,000 journalists in 146 countries, calls itself “the global voice of journalists”, many of whom strive to reveal corruption and wrongdoings.
It denounced the accusations as “false, defamatory and damaging”.
The Nordic members accused the IFJ of longstanding undemocratic practices, unethical finances and of allowing the Russian state media representatives to continue as members.
“We call this corruptive activity,” Hanne Aho, the chairwoman of the Union of Journalists in Finland, told Reuters.
“We have decided to resign together with the Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic unions. We will hand in our letters of resignation on Tuesday.”
Aho said the Nordic unions had for years tried to raise problems internally within the IFJ, with their latest disappointment being the IFJ not taking action against the Russian Union of Journalists for setting up regional journalists’ associations in Ukrainian territories invaded by Russia.
“They have been able to do so in all tranquillity without the international federation expelling the Russian union,” Aho said.
The IFJ said its executive committee had triggered a formal process for suspending and expelling the Russian Union of Journalists. It said expenditure was formally audited every year, adding that it had sought to answer all questions posed by the Nordic unions.
“We entirely reject what are false, defamatory and damaging allegations,” IFJ Deputy General Secretary Jeremy Dear told Reuters in an emailed response.
The Nordic unions also complained about what they said was the IFJ’s non-transparent use of finances, including its decision to hold its world congress last year in the autocratic Gulf Arab state of Oman, which has limited press freedom, Aho said.
“Trappings at the congress were extremely flamboyant so we began to wonder where the money had come from to pay for them,” Aho said.
Aho said the Union of Journalists in Finland had requested and received IFJ’s budget for the congress, which showed that up to 745,000 euros ($811,000) of the total of 778,000 euros came from Omani ministries and private companies as well as the Oman Journalists’ Association, while IFJ itself paid only 33,000 euros of the expenses.
The IFJ said the amounts included subsidies negotiated by the Oman Journalists’ Association.
“This has been normal procedure used in the hosting of successive IFJ congresses over decades,” it wrote in a statement shared with Reuters.
The Nordic unions also condemned a low turnover in the federation’s decision-making bodies and suspect undemocratic practices may have occurred at the organisation’s internal elections, Aho added.
The IFJ, on its website, says it does not subscribe to any given political viewpoint, but promotes collective action to defend human rights, democracy and media pluralism.
“IFJ policy is decided democratically at a Congress which meets every three years and work is carried out by the Secretariat under the direction of an elected executive committee,” it says.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen; Editing by Nick Macfie)
