(FMM/IFEX) – The following is a Free Media Movement press release: Press Release from the Free Media Movement May 3, 1999 International Press Freedom Day Free Media movement is pleased to join hands with other media organisations and journalists all over the world to mark International Press Freedom Day. Several journalists are still languishing in […]
(FMM/IFEX) – The following is a Free Media Movement press release:
Press Release from the Free Media Movement
May 3, 1999
International Press Freedom Day
Free Media movement is pleased to join hands with other media organisations
and journalists all over the world to mark International Press Freedom Day.
Several journalists are still languishing in prisons, several of them have
died in the hands of authoritarian regimes. From Yugoslavia to Sudan,
including several democratic countries, press freedom is increasingly under
attack and the situation is grave in several parts of the world. The conduct
of NATO and particularly the US in the current war against Yugoslavia is
appalling. Newspaper offices and TV stations have been bombed. The first
casualty, as in any other war situation, has been truth and media freedom.
On this special day to mark press freedom, Free Media Movement would like to
stress the fact that the freedom of the press and the right to free
expressions are the corner stones of any other Human Rights. Without a right
to free speech no progress can be made in any meaningful way.
We in Sri Lanka have not made desirable progress in the areas of press
freedom and free speech. The government still enforces censorship. We cannot
report on the ongoing and brutal civil war. Journalists are barred from
entering the war zones. All parties to the conflict, the government, the
LTTE and other militant groups are responsible for muzzling press freedom.
Journalists continue to be targeted by government forces. When they came to
power, this government promised a significant measure of media reform
including the liberalisation of the state controlled media. Nothing has
happened to date. The parliamentary Select Committee on press freedom has
not made any progress. The recommendations submitted by the four committees
that addressed the issues of media freedom and free expression, broad basing
the ownership of media have not been implemented by the government. The
government is also responsible for creating a climate of media phobia
thereby targeting the media people who criticise the government.
It is in this context that we call upon all media people to unite and
struggle for free media. Recognising that responsibility is the flip side of
freedom, we would like to emphasise that we would uphold our commitment to
the dictum – facts are sacred and comments are free. We cannot build a
democratic and just society without free speech.
