(WAN/IFEX) – The following is an 11 December 2003 WAN press release: Geneva, Switzerland, 11 December 2003 Bridge the “Political and Moral Divide” Before the Digital Divide Closing the “political and moral divide” between democratic governments and dictatorships must be accomplished before governments can close the “digital divide” between rich and poor countries, the Director […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is an 11 December 2003 WAN press release:
Geneva, Switzerland, 11 December 2003
Bridge the “Political and Moral Divide” Before the Digital Divide
Closing the “political and moral divide” between democratic governments and dictatorships must be accomplished before governments can close the “digital divide” between rich and poor countries, the Director General of the World Association of Newspapers told delegates to the World Summit on the Information Society today.
“The technological challenge of bridging the so-called digital divide is not, I believe, the main issue. The main issue is how we can bridge the political and moral divide between countries which accept democratic debate and those which repress it,” Timothy Balding, Director General of the Paris-based WAN, told representatives of the world’s governments at the plenary session Thursday evening of the WSIS in Geneva, Switzerland.
“It is largely the poorest, least developed nations where this repression of information and opinion is most severe,” he said. “In Eritrea, for example, where the government has eliminated the independent press by locking up all its journalists. Or in Myanmar, or Iran, where hundreds of newspapers have been shut down, or Syria, or Cuba, or China, which regularly sends cyber-reporters to up to fifteen years in jail for calling for pluralism.”
16,000 representatives of government, business and civil society from almost 200 countries are attending the Information Summit. The governments will sign a Declaration on Friday that affirms that freedom of expression and the free flow of information are central and crucial to the Information Society.
“Unhappily, dozens of governments which will adopt this text tomorrow mercilessly and cynically persecute the men and women whose job it is to enable and to facilitate this free flow of information,” said Mr Balding. “Thousands of journalists and human rights activists are each year arrested and imprisoned, frequently beaten and sometimes murdered for trying to exercise their human right to free expression.”
He called on governments to respect these freedoms.
“Freedom of expression and the free flow of information are the very foundations of democratic societies, the societies which are best placed to achieve the prosperity and peace which is the legitimate aspiration of all human beings,” he said. “Freedom of expression and the free flow of information are a fundamental precondition of durable economic, political, social and cultural progress and stability.”
“Freedom of expression and the free flow of information are powerful and essential allies in the global fight against poverty, disease, corruption, ignorance and illiteracy and also international terrorism, which breeds and grows in closed societies which outlaw open debate,” he said.
Mr Balding also reiterated a call to the organisers of the WSIS to abandon plans to meet in Tunisia in late 2005 “unless Tunisia begins to respect human rights, especially those of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. If the second phase of this Summit goes ahead in the current environment in Tunisia it will bring this process into disrepute and completely undermine your Declaration’s reaffirmation of the principles of free information and free expression.”
WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 72 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.
