13 press freedom violation alerts were documented in Malta in 2025, according to the Media Freedom Rapid Response.

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) is a Europe-wide mechanism that tracks, monitors and reacts to press and media freedom violations in EU member states and candidate countries.

It has published its Mapping Media Freedom report for 2025.

For the year 2025, the Mapping Media Freedom database documented a total of 1481 press freedom violations affecting 2377 media-related persons or entities. EU Member States accounted for 740 of the recorded attacks on press freedom against 1143 media-related persons or entities - almost exactly 50% of all recorded violations. EU candidate countries accounted for 741 of the recorded attacks on press freedom against 1234 media-related persons or entities.

Of the total, 13 were recorded in Malta. One of the 13 reports reads that Jason Micallef, a special delegate appointed by Prime Minister Robert Abela and director of Ta' Qali parks, published a Facebook post targeting a journalist. Other reports include one about about blocking FOI requests related to cabinet ministers' asset declarations, as well as another report about the Prime Minister having "lashed out at independent media, accusing news outlets Amphora Media, Times of Malta, and Malta Today of colluding with civil society organisation Repubblika for partisan ends."

In total since 2020, there have been 72 alerts recorded in Malta.

Speaking about Europe in General, the report states that "while Europe overall remains a relative safe haven for press freedom globally, with many countries among the healthiest climates in the world for independent journalism, the region is also marked by multiple ongoing media freedom crises which require urgent international attention."

"During 2025, 14.7% of the documented press freedom violations involved physical attacks equating to 218 incidents. In 86 cases the attacks resulted in injuries. Physical attacks were mainly perpetrated by private individuals and police and mostly happened during protests, on public places and streets, or during events. Four journalists and media workers were killed: Aliona Hramova, Yevhen Karmazin and Oleksandr Kolychev in Ukraine, as well as Hakan Tosun in Türkiye."

It said: "In 40% of all recorded incidents, media workers faced verbal assaults, equating to 592 attacks and nearly 1000 affected media-related persons or entities. In 21.5% of all recorded incidents media workers were intimidated and threatened. Especially alarming were the 88 recorded death threats. The number of death threats has constantly increased over the past years, with more than double the number recorded in 2025 compared to five years ago (40 incidents). Between 2020 and 2025, the database recorded 339 cases of death threats against 588 media-related persons or entities."