(WPFC/IFEX) – According to the WPFC, Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Klaus Kinkel, has been considering retaliating against the actions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) to prevent newsgathering by German journalists, by expelling Serbian journalists from Germany (see IFEX alerts). **For background information see IFEX alerts of 18 and 6 August 1998** The […]
(WPFC/IFEX) – According to the WPFC, Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Klaus Kinkel, has been considering retaliating against the actions of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) to prevent newsgathering by German
journalists, by expelling Serbian journalists from Germany (see IFEX
alerts).
**For background information see IFEX alerts of 18 and 6 August 1998**
The WPFC applauds the Minister’s desire to back the right of German
journalists to move
unhindered and to report freely in Federal Yugoslavia, however the
organisation believes that the tit-for-tat expulsion of journalists is both
outdated and counterproductive. It plays into the hands of the FRY
government’s contention that journalists represent the states where their
news media are based, rather than newsgatherers working independently of
governmental policy.
The expulsion of a journalist contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights’ stipulation that “Everyone has the right…to seek, receive and
impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Expelling a journalist as a retaliatory measure would violate the letter and
spirit of Article 19. Reprehensible actions by a state should be met by
appropriate measures against the offending state — not by actions against
other journalists, who should be encouraged to report independently from
governments.
The WPFC states that two wrongs would not make a right. Symmetrical
retaliation was justifiable during the Cold War, when Communist media had no
choice but to act as arms
of the state. Today, when there is growing success in persuading media in
Eastern Europe that they should be independent of governments, such an
action by a major Western power would be the wrong message — both to East
European journalists and to governments who should be encouraged to free
journalists from bondage to state apparatus.
