(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 15 March 2006 IAPA press release: Ecuador Signs Press Freedom Declaration Miami (March 15, 2006) – The heads of the three branches of government in Ecuador will sign the Declaration of Chapultepec on Sunday during the opening of the first session of the Midyear Meeting of the Inter American […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 15 March 2006 IAPA press release:
Ecuador Signs Press Freedom Declaration
Miami (March 15, 2006) – The heads of the three branches of government in Ecuador will sign the Declaration of Chapultepec on Sunday during the opening of the first session of the Midyear Meeting of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), where the situation of press freedom in the Americas will be analyzed.
Ecuadorian president, Alfredo Palacio, along with the president of the National Congress, Wilfrido Lucero, and the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Jaime Velasco, will sign the document that contains ten principles on freedom of expression and of the press. The declaration was adopted at the Hemisphere Conference on Freedom of Expression, organized by the IAPA and held at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in March, 1994. It has been endorsed by 45 heads of State.
The IAPA annual meeting that will bring together around 500 journalists and editors from newspapers from throughout the hemisphere, will begin this Friday with a series of seminars on newspaper production, press agencies, and online media. Other topics will include the newspaper in transition, finding new readers, and the newspaper-Internet-cell phone relationship.
The opening session of IAPA committees will be led by the organization’s president, Diana Daniels, vice president of The Washington Post Company. Special attention should be given to the discussion of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, which will hear and examine the reports of each country and propose final resolutions on particular issues.
Highlights from the meeting’s agenda that continues through Monday include different panels on: Investigative Reporting; The Online Newspaper; the experience of the Brazilian press with circulation; and the dangers from organized crime for the practice of journalism. During the latter, the book “Risk Map for Journalists”, produced by the IAPA, that documents the current violence against journalists and its causes, showing how this affects the daily work of journalists, will be officially released.
