Guest Post: What you should know about Mongolia’s proposed Press Freedom bill

By Dulamkhorloo Baatar

After 27 years, Mongolia takes another stab at passing a new Press Freedom Bill. The bill was submitted to Parliament for discussion in late January 2025 and is expected to be discussed as soon as the Parliamentary sessions commence in mid-March. This is at least the third attempt to renew the current Press Freedom Law which was adopted in 1998. The simple 4-provision law of 1998 guarantees freedom of the press by prohibiting all forms of censorship and state ownership of media, but fails to guarantee protection of confidential sources, which have long been a cause of intimidation for journalists pursuing investigative reporting.

Photo: Ministry of Justice and Home affairs submits Press Freedom Bill to Parliament for discussion. 2025/01/25 Photo credit: Parliament

As the media environment drastically changed in the wake of social media era and false information, the country has been amending other existing laws to deal with these modern problems. Currently, defamation is criminalized under the Criminal Code which has been long frowned upon by the international community. Criminalizing defamation was one of the key reasons Mongolia’s Press Freedom Index fell to 109 (declining by 21 places year-on-year) out of 180 countries tracked by the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2024, its historic low since the index was tracked. The proposed legislation follows an attempt by the government in 2023 to pass the “Law on Protecting Human Rights on social media” which was vetoed by President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa following an outcry from civil society groups and journalists leading to concerns of state censorship such as blocking all forms of communication if a government member decided a certain situation was threatening national security.

A month after the proposition of the Press Freedom Bill the Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Communication announced plans to establish an anti-disinformation unit under the government, which is seen as yet another step to shrink the freedom of expression space.

We are concerned that the legislative process follows an existing international trend of closing civic space and shrinking press freedom observed across the globe despite Mongolia’s celebrated democratic success.

Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development NGO is closely watching the public discussions on the proposed bill as this will have a lasting impact on Mongolia’s democracy.

Existing legislation

According to Globe International Center NGO, who have been a strong advocate of press freedom in the last 26 years, there are currently 300 mentions of the words “press” and “information” in existing legislations in Mongolia, each imposing duties and responsibilities to media organizations. Currently, defamation lawsuits are possible under the Criminal Code, under the guise of disinformation. Although Mongolia is celebrated for having an “Access to Information Law”, it singles out 68 types of information as open to public and journalists, while more than two thousand types of information are “protected” by other legislations and regulations categorized as state or organizational secrets. Despite the current proposed draft, “” said Onon Batmunkh, CEO of Globe International Center in a conversation with Nest Center for this blogpost.

There have been instances where provisions about keeping state secrets or espionage have been utilized to put public figures and journalists behind bars, leaving the public without much information about the details of the cases.

A number of key issues are still left unregulated due to the lack of legal environment. All media staff, except the journalists working for broadcast media do not enjoy the right to protect confidential sources to this day. The existing legal environment does not accept the legality of freelancers, which has been a challenge for individual journalists to access certain information in an already challenging environment.

Existing legislations except the 1998 Press Freedom law imposes duties and responsibilities to media organizations and journalists and fails to explore international best practices to support freedom of expression.

Additionally, the criminalization of defamation continues to be possible under the Criminal Code, provision 13.14. According to Globe International data, a total of 2260 cases have been opened under this provision between 2020 and 2024, and 133 instances were submitted to court. This proves that this clause poses a threat to freedom of expression. Furthermore, it opens doors for intimidation against journalists, calling them out to be questioned multiple times, just to have the case closed after multiple interrogations.

Is new legislation needed?

According to the author of the proposed bill, the Minister of Justice and Home Affairs Altangerel Oyunsaikhan, a number of key improvements are expected from the adoption of the bill. “Firstly, the adoption of the bill will help improve the press freedom index which has been constantly declining in the past few years. The ability of journalists ensured by the international conventions that Mongolia abides by will strengthen. The legality of self-regulation organization and the right to protect confidential sources will be put in place. And by providing a definition of disinformation, journalists who have been questioned under the Criminal Code will be protected. Also, we will ensure transparency of media organizations and support the development of responsible media organizations.” he said in an online panel discussion led by Nest Center in December 2024.

Photo: Online panel discussion about the proposed Press Freedom Bill conducted by Nest Center. (Participants from left to right: Munkhmandakh Myagmar, CEO of Press Institute of Mongolia, Dulamkhorloo Bataar, Chairperson at Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development NGO, Lily Liu, Legal Advisor at ICNL, Julie Hunter, Senior Llegal Advisor at ICNL, Altagerel Oyunsaikhan, Minister of Justice and Home Affairs of Mongolia)

The right to protect confidential sources was long requested by the media community from the state. This is one of the key and welcome additions proposed in the draft bill on Press Freedom. “I personally think we need to work together to improve the proposed draft bill as it has attempted to regulate several key issues that are currently missing in the 1998 Press Freedom law, such as ensuring right to publication from the state, prohibiting any attempts to censor and shrink freedom of the press and freedom of expression, prohibiting creation of any government position with the role to censor and intimidate media and journalists, as well as ensuring the protection of confidential sources which has been long requested by civil society organizations”, said Munkhmandakh Myagmar, CEO of Press Institute of Mongolia in a separate conversation with Nest Center.

There is also need to recognize freelance journalists and renew journalism related terms to better navigate the changing information space and fit the social media first world. Additionally, there is a need to address the changing business ecosystem and differentiate individual information creators from journalists who are bound by professional ethics.

With this said, Nest Center feels that no additional regulation is needed unless it significantly improves the existing legislative environment for journalists and creates a legal safeguard for them to effectively serve the public’s right to information. After all, it is better to operate in a grey area than operating in a closed space. Nest Center’s position is to significantly improve the proposed legislation during Parliament discussion as there is significant need to legislate new trends, but is decreasing the Press Freedom in the name of a Freedom Bill.

What the draft bill fails to address?

Even after a series of discussions with groups of civil society organizations as well as the media, the bill still fails to address a number of key issues that would bring meaningful improvements to the information ecosystem.

“Some of the main issues we observed in Mongolia over the past years are, growing number of attacks against journalists in the form of threats and pressure, sometimes arrest. A certain amount of it was reported to be coming from public officials or politicians. We’ve also seen the use of defamation laws to silence journalists and politicization of media outlets through ownerships which is highly concentrated in Mongolia. And finally, what was also striking was the poor working conditions of journalists. Low salary, high workload result in some pressure to produce less value content or that is detrimental to respect of journalistic ethics” said Pierre Dagard, Head of Advocacy at RSF in a virtual panel discussion organized by Nest Center.

Photo: Online panel discussion about the proposed Press Freedom Bill conducted by Nest Center. (Participants from left to right: Altantuya.B, Specialist and the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs, Dulamkhorloo Bataar, Chairperson at Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development NGO, Naranjargal Khashkhuu, Founder of Globe International Center, Pierre Dagard, Head of Advocacy at RSF)

The current draft fails to address the deficit in advertising revenue created by the growth of social media companies. It overlooks the existing best practices that support professional journalism such as softer taxing requirements or subsidies, which would have a tremendous enabling effect on the resiliency of media organizations.

A group of international rapporteurs, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression laid out several non-invasive mechanisms to support the freedom of expression in a joint declaration in 2017, including introducing subsidies for media organizations to support their public interest reporting which are yet to be considered in existing regulations.

It also includes a number of provisions that impose more duties and responsibilities for media organizations. “The current draft is more of an industry regulation rather than a Press Freedom Bill. It includes provisions stating that the state ensures freedom of the press while it is already ensured by the Constitution implying that state holds the power over media organizations” said Mandkhaikhatan Tsevegmid, CEO of Youth Policy Watch NGO, an advocate for better governance.

There has also been a reluctance to accept international standards such as the Initiative that ensure due processes are followed during news creation, and rather preferring imposition of requirements framed as principles in the bill. ing imposition of requirements framed as principles in the bill.

I will offer an analysis and an outlook for the bill in coming days.

About Dulamkhorloo

My name is Dulamkhorloo Baatar. I run the Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development NGO, established in 2020 to support media organizations to become financially sustainable and resilient, enabling them to better serve the public’s right to information. Following our incubation programs enabling journalism startups to invest in their public interest reporting and creating several high impact stories, our beneficiaries started witnessing increased intimidation attempts which led us to gear our mission towards improving legal regulations and creating a safeguard for journalists.