Responding to the WAN-IFRA 'UK Press Freedom' report, Hacked Off director Professor Brian Cathcart said:“We are disappointed but not surprised that this group has failed to see past the cynical scaremongering by the big British newspapers about the Royal Charter.“We are disappointed because Hacked Off gave them the opportunity to hear from victims of press abuse¹ about the need for change in Britain and the very modest nature of the changes that have been adopted – but they have ignored this entirely in their report.“We are not surprised because this is, after all, a trade body of which the big British newspaper groups are leading members² and because WAN-IFRA showed that its mind was made up even before the mission arrived³.“Unlike this WAN-IFRA report, the Royal Charter scheme is the result of a proper, legal fact-finding inquiry held in public and led by a senior judge – Sir Brian Leveson. The Charter poses no threat whatever to freedom of expression in Britain⁴ but it will challenge the freedom of newspapers to bully, lie and intrude with impunity⁵.“If autocrats in repressive regimes are using events here to try and justify harsh measures in their own countries, then bodies such as WAN-IFRA should be exposing the misrepresentation of the Leveson Report and the Royal Charter in the press, not contributing to it⁶.”Christopher Jefferies, a victim of press abuse, added:"It is disappointing that a delegation that supposedly came to find facts has failed so badly to understand what has happened. Our institutions have acted very cautiously to ensure that, while necessary steps are taken to protect ordinary people from abuse by newspapers, freedom of expression is also safeguarded.“Almost everybody in this country with the exception of the big national newspaper companies understands this. The delegation should have listened more carefully.”Hacked Off facilitated a meeting on 16 January 2014 between the WAN-IFRA delegation and Christopher Jefferies, who endured multiple libels by national newspapers, Jane Winter, a human rights worker whose emails were illegally hacked by a newspaper, and Tom Rowland, a victim of phone hacking.NOTES1. Hacked Off facilitated a meeting on 16 January 2014 between the WAN-IFRA delegation and Christopher Jefferies, who endured multiple libels by national newspapers, Jane Winter, a human rights worker whose emails were illegally hacked by a newspaper, and Tom Rowland, a victim of phone hacking.2. WAN-IFRA is a partisan bodyWAN-IFRA is a trade association (‘the indispensable partner of newspapers’, as it says itself) which acts on behalf of, among others, the Newspaper Publishers’ Association of the UK, grouping all the main British national companies. The NPA is represented at WAN-IFRA by Kevin Beatty, who sits on both the board and the executive committee, and by Rich Stunt, who is vice chair of the advisory council and the European committee. Mr Beatty is currently also Executive Director of Daily Mail and General Trust plc and Mr Stunt is Group Paper Director in the same company. 3. WAN-IFRA had made up its mind about the Royal Charter before this report was written:i) On 24 October 2013, nearly three months before the ‘fact-finding’ visit, WAN-IFRA signed a letter to the Queen condemning the Charter: ‘The proposed Royal Charter which politicians are forcing Your Majesty to sign is, despite the camouflage, in reality a set of repressive statutory controls being imposed on the press against its will.’ii) Announcing its visit to the UK on 8 November 2013, WAN-IFRA prejudged the outcome, asserting that the Charter and the Snowden affair ‘not only seriously damage the United Kingdom’s historic international reputation as a staunch defender of press freedom, but provides encouragement to non-democratic regimes to justify their own repressive actions.’iii) It did it again on 17 January 2014, the day after the visit concluded, declaring that their mission ‘highlighted serious concerns regarding the independence from political involvement in that process, and how implementation of the legislation that underpins the Royal Charter could potentially be abused to restrict a free press both here in the UK and abroad.’iv) Again on 18 February 2014, while the delegation report was still being written, WAN-IFRA signed a letter to David Cameron, saying: ‘We are deeply concerned that actions taken by your government will embolden autocratic leaders’, and urging that Parliament should ‘repeal the amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill and other legislation that provides statutory underpinning to the Royal Charter’.4. More than 200 leading British people in the world of freedom of expression, from world-famous authors, film directors and actors to television personalities, human rights lawyers, journalists and academics have signed the Leveson Royal Charter Declaration in support of the Charter. See here: https://hackinginquiry.org/declaration/5. The Royal Charter has compelling legitimacyThe Royal Charter embodies the recommendations of a judge-led public inquiry that sat for a year and heard the views of every party – including newspaper editors. It was endorsed by every single party in Parliament. It has the support of all the most prominent victims of the abuses that made the inquiry necessary.It has the backing of more than 200 prominent figures in the world of free expression, including many of our leading authors, playwrights, journalists, film and theatre directors, human rights lawyers, academics and comedians. It has been endorsed by the National Union of Journalists. And the opinion polls show that it has the overwhelming support of the public. The Royal Charter scheme conforms fully to the European Convention on Human Rights. Its provisions place fewer requirements and obligations on the press than regulatory regimes in many European countries that stand higher than the UK in the World Press Freedom Index. These include countries such as Denmark and Finland, whose press was represented in the WAN-IFRA delegation.6. See here: https://hackinginquiry.org/comment/appeasing-dictators-will-not-help-press-freedom/