(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 22 September 1999 announcement of a CPJ report on reactions to international efforts to censor media hate speech in Kosovo: **For background on the media control system see IFEX alerts of 13 August, 23 June and 22 June 1999** CIVILITY BY DECREE: WHY MANY KOSOVO JOURNALISTS WANT CENSORSHIP Read […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 22 September 1999 announcement of a CPJ
report on reactions to international efforts to censor media hate speech in
Kosovo:
**For background on the media control system see IFEX alerts of 13 August,
23 June and 22 June 1999**
CIVILITY BY DECREE: WHY MANY KOSOVO JOURNALISTS WANT CENSORSHIP
Read about it on CPJ’s website
The Committee to Protect Journalists has published a report on its Web site
(www.cpj.org.) presenting all points of view on international efforts to
censor media hate speech in Kosovo. The Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) recently created a new Media Policy Board,
comprised of six ethnic Albanians and one ethnic Serb, to advise them on
regulating independent media in Kosovo. The Albanian contingent includes two
of Kosovo’s most respected
journalists, Baton Haxhiu of the Pristina daily Koha Ditore and Aferdita
Kelmendi of Radio 21.
Veteran war correspondent Frank Smyth interviewed independent Kosovar
journalists, western free press advocates, and international officials in
Kosovo.
Smyth found that many Kosovar journalists welcome press regulation because
they fear the bloody consequences of media hate speech. US free speech
advocates (including CPJ), however, are worried about setting precedents
that might justify censorship “long after the fighting is over” – in Kosovo
and elsewhere in the world. The OSCE, meanwhile, argues that the new board
won’t restrict press freedom. “We don’t want to be some kind of Nazi
overseer,” says Douglas Davidson, the OSCE’s director of media affairs in
Pristina.
You can read the full text of the article at
http://www.cpj.org/dangerous/daindex.html
