Global campaign against press curbs planned

WINDHOEK (NAMIBIA), MAY 3. The World Conference on Press Freedom on Thursday decided to launch a global campaign against censorship with the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, asking Governments to ensure that journalists pursued their professional work unhindered.

Representatives of Governments, the U.N. and media organisations, meeting on the opening day of the conference on the World Press Freedom Day, decided to launch the campaign against restrictions on free flow of information, to fight racism and discrimination while looking for ways to check the use of Internet for spreading communal hatred.

``We all know that censorship has been used to suppress political dissent and enforce status quo rather than to protect society or minorities. On the other hand, no jurisdiction considers freedom of speech an absolute right,'' Mr. Jyoti Shankar Singh, executive coordinator of the U.N. Commission for Human Rights, said.

The three-day conference is being held in the Namibian capital where the `Windhoek Declaration' on press freedom was adopted 10 years ago.

Mr. Annan, in a joint message, said: ``We call upon decision- makers at all levels to do whatever they can to ensure that journalists can pursue their work unhindered and undeterred.''

The Namibian Information Minister, Mr. Theo-ben Gurirab, asked journalists to assess the challenges and prospects before them professionally.

Other signatories to the joint message included the UNESCO director general, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Mary Robinson.

``Experience has shown that even the most heinous regimes can gain popular support if they manage to muzzle the media or manipulate it to arouse fear and hatred among their citizens,'' the message read out at the conference said.

It said the scribes had an ``indispensable role to play in rooting out racism and xenophobia.'' Stating that freedom of expression was ``always fragile'' and journalists were liable to suffer intimidation, violence, prison terms and even execution, it said press freedom was ``threatened by political, economic, financial, military, religious or even criminal interests''.

Mr. Matsuura gave away the 2001 UNESCO-Guillermo Cano world press freedom prize to the senior Myanmar journalist, Mr. U. Win Tin, who is currently serving a prison sentence in Yangon. Mr. Tin was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for his membership of the banned Communist Party of Myanmar.

Mr. Singh said the rights to express and receive information without prior restraint from any public authority remain the basic pillars of democratic freedom and choice.

The advent and spread of the World Wide Web, he said, had ``further sharpened the dilemma between free speech and non- discrimination'' and cautioned about the ``alarming proliferation of Internet hate sites'' which were targetting the youth and attempting to persuade them to adopt blatantly racist attitudes.

The conference is being attended by over 300 journalists from across the globe, officials of U.N. agencies, Government representatives and media organisations.

- PTI

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