(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Hong Kong, 4 June 2001 World Congress Calls for Press Freedom in China The World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum opened Monday with praise for China for honouring its commitment to Hong Kong and with a warning that it must reverse the repression it […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Hong Kong, 4 June 2001
World Congress Calls for Press Freedom in China
The World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum opened Monday with praise for China for honouring its commitment to Hong Kong and with a warning that it must reverse the repression it imposes on the other 1.3 billion Chinese.
“Credit where credit is due,” said Roger Parkinson, President of the World Association of Newspapers, in opening remarks to more than 1,000 newspaper publishers, senior executives, editors and their guests attending the global press meetings in Hong Kong.
“In all fairness we must commend the Chinese government for keeping its word and staying true to its commitment to uphold or tolerate in Hong Kong those freedoms which it continues to withhold from the other 1.3 billion people in the nation,” he said.
The Paris-based WAN has for many years been fighting with China over freedom of expression issues, said Mr Parkinson. “We have often made our arguments on the grounds of principle and morality, which has more often than not drawn us into fruitless discussions about allegedly different cultural standards and concepts.
“Today, in this unique opportunity given to WAN, to speak about these matters on Chinese soil, I would like rather to underline the political and economic arguments in favour of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of information,” said Mr Parkinson.
Removing barriers to freedom of expression was in China’s best interest, said Mr Parkinson.
He quoted Eduard Shevardnadze, the pragmatic former Soviet foreign minister and present President of Georgia, who told WAN earlier this year that he blamed the moral and political failure of the communist system on the suppression of freedom of speech, which he said “inevitably results in the accumulation of colossal amounts of negative energy that will ultimately smash every wall erected by a totalitarian system or a dictatorship.”
Mr Parkinson said that freedom is a positive force in development and warned: “there is still time to reverse this new spiral of repression of freedoms in China, but really not much time. The new forms of information distribution are giving more and more people the legitimate ambition that they should participate in the free exchange of information and ideas which must characterise any modern society open to the world. The current generation of Chinese leaders still has the opportunity to satisfy this ambition, still has the opportunity to harness the free flow of information in the service of progress and development toward a more powerful and prosperous and stable China.”
The alternative, he said, would mean “simply keep marching down the other route on which they are apparently embarked: more information police, more arrests, more imprisonments.”
The 54th World Newspaper Congress and 8th World Editors Forum continues through Wednesday.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 17,000 newspapers; its membership includes 67 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 93 countries, 17 news agencies and eight regional and world-wide press groups.
