World Press Freedom Day was established by
the UN on 3 May 1991 to highlight the basic principles of press freedom.
It is a day to encourage and develop press freedom initiatives and to
spur assessments of the state of press freedom worldwide.
The New York-based
Committee to
Protect Journalists will mark 3 May by naming the "World's Worst
Places to Be a Journalist"--10 places which represent the full range of
current threats to press freedom: government crackdowns, physical
violence, and danger from military operations. The Paris-based
Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) will present its 2003 annual report on press
freedom in 156 countries plus a list of 42 "predators" responsible for
attacks against press freedom. The
National Press Club of Canada has released its "Press Freedom
Review," a booklet of cartoons and articles surveying press freedom from
the point of view of various international press associations, for 3
May.
World Press Freedom Day should also remind governments to respect press
freedom pledges, as the
U.S.
Helsinki Commission noted on 30 April. The
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) will dedicate 3 May to fighting the global trend towards
impunity that shields perpetrators of crimes against journalists from
prosecution. It is joined in this effort by the International PEN Club.
World Press Freedom
Day can also serve as a time to offer support for vulnerable media
workers, as in the International News Safety Institute, launched in
Brussels on 2 May by the
International Federation of Journalists and a coalition of media
organizations, journalists' unions, and press freedom groups.
World Press Freedom Day should serve as a time of remembrance for the
many journalists who have been killed in the line of duty. The
Vienna-based International Press Institute noted that with 54
journalists killed in 2002 and 23 journalists killed since the start of
this year--14 of them during the war in Iraq--the need for better safety
for journalists has never been more urgent (see the "IPI
Death Watch").
World Press Freedom Day also reminds the world that in dozens of
countries, publications are censored, fined, suspended, and closed down,
while journalists, editors, and publishers are harassed, attacked,
imprisoned, detained, and murdered, as the Toronto-based
International Freedom of Information Exchange (IFEX) communique
observed on 29 April.
The World Press Freedom Committee on 3 May will highlight the urgent need to eliminate so-called "insult laws" that protect presidents and other officials from public scrutiny of their conduct in office and in certain countries are used ruthlessly against journalists. Around the world, the majority of crimes against journalists go unpunished.
Reprinted with permission from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.