(WPFC/IFEX) – The resolutions that follow were adopted at a meeting of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations in Windhoek, Namibia, on 6 May 2001: COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS WORLD […]
(WPFC/IFEX) – The resolutions that follow were adopted at a meeting of the
Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations in Windhoek, Namibia, on 6 May 2001:
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
Resolution on Namibia
The Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, May 6, 2001, was dismayed to learn that the government of Namibia, the host country of UNESCO’s 10-year commemoration last week of the historic Windhoek Declaration on press freedom in Africa, has been violating elementary principles of freedom of the press, in clear violation of Namibia’s commitments to press freedom under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international and regional agreements.
The government has announced its intention to punish the highly respected independent newspaper “The Namibian” and its courageous founding editor Gwen Lister by denying the newspaper any further governmental advertising.
The Namibian government also instructed many visiting journalists attending the commemoration not to cover anything but the UNESCO conference, in conformity with its restrictive immigration and labor laws.
The President of Namibia, speaking through his Foreign and Information Minister, chose the UNESCO seminar as the venue to berate the press and to inform it that his conception of press freedom is that news media outlets should serve as “tools” to transmit government information to the public.
These actions by the Namibian authorities clearly show that they choose not to uphold fundamental principles of press freedom.
It is particularly ironic that these situations should have been highlighted on May 3, World Press Freedom Day, established by the United Nations and UNESCO to celebrate the basic press freedom Declaration made by African journalists in the very same city of Windhoek in 1991 and endorsed by all the UNESCO member-states, including Namibia.
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COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
Resolution on Windhoek II Seminar’s Final Recommendations
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, May 6, 2001 criticized some of the final recommendations of the UNESCO seminar held there, notably parts of a “Charter on African Broadcasting 2001.”
The Coordinating Committee registered its disagreement on the call in the recommendations for a professional code of ethics “promoting positive coverage of women’s issues” and with the “Charter” submitted by the AMARC organization. The Coordinating Committee saw the “Charter” as an attempt to limit press freedom and the public’s right to information without hindrance.
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COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
Resolution on the Press Freedom Situation in Russia
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, May 6, 2001, deplored the growing actions and threats against press freedom in Russia.
The members noted with distress and reprobation that the Russian authorities have dismantled the independent editorial leaderships of the nationwide media outlets of the Media-MOST group — NTV, the only independent national television channel; “Segodnya,” a leading daily newspaper, and “Itogi,” a weekly newsmagazine published in association with “Newsweek” magazine.
When NTV journalists transferred their news programming to the local and cable television channels TV6 and TNT, the tax police immediately descended upon those outlets. Thus, the veil has been lifted from the government’s widely contested claim that a long series of actions against the Media-MOST group was purely a matter of alleged fiscal misdeeds and had nothing to do with any Kremlin desire to throttle the independence of a news media outlet.
Furthermore, large debts that have been amassed by Russian state television under similar circumstances have not led to tax police raids such as those to which the independent national television’s parent company has been repeatedly subjected. The tax police have also turned their attention to the independent-minded Russian Union of Journalists, even though it receives no official subsidies that should be of interest to the tax authorities.
The Russian authorities have gone beyond mere harassment, now very obviously serving as instruments in a campaign either to bring all independent elements of the press to heel, or to disband them altogether.
This situation is in stark contrast with President Vladimir Putin’s repeated claims that he advocates press freedom as a necessary condition for the continuation and development of democracy in Russia. The actions of the authorities clearly contradict such reassurances and the Russian government’s press freedom commitments under United Nations and pan-European agreements. Further, restricting press freedom hampers the struggle against corruption that President Putin has designated as a major priority for the health of Russian society.
If Russia is to continue to be seen as a working democracy, its government must put an immediate halt to the actions against press freedom.
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COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
Resolution on Targeting of Broadcast Stations in Conflicts
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, on May 6, 2001, resolve that governments should not target broadcast facilities during war and conflict.
Broadcast facilities are presumed to be civilian objects because they do not meet the customary definition of a military objective under international humanitarian law.
Article 52 of Protocol (1) Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 states, “Military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”
This rule is part of customary international law and is binding on states that have not ratified the Protocol.
Broadcast facilities can only lose this civilian immunity if they are used for significant military purposes, such as military communication. The broadcast of “propaganda” does not constitute a military function. This is a highly subjective term that should never be used to justify a military attack.
In the last several years, military attacks have been launched against broadcast facilities in Serbia, Dagestan, and the West Bank. Such attacks violate international humanitarian law and place all journalists covering conflicts at risk.
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COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
Resolution on Suspended Sentences and High Bails
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, at its meeting on Sunday, May 6, 2001, in Windhoek, Namibia, deplored the use of lengthy suspended jail sentences in criminal defamation trials, as well as the imposition of disproportionately high bails, to silence criticism and prevent journalists and editors from carrying out their professional duties.
Although the members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations accept that, in many cases, suspended sentences are preferable to prison sentences they have been increasingly disturbed by the use of lengthy suspended sentences in a number of criminal trials around the world. They also deplored the imposition of highly disproportionate bail bond fees to release accused journalists from prison pending trials.
In Sri Lanka, on 5 September 2000, the editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunga, was sentenced to two years imprisonment — suspended for five years — for alleged criminal defamation of the president of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Kumaratunga. The practice was used again in Sri Lanka during early December of last year, when the court of appeals upheld the one-year term of imprisonment — suspended for 7 years — given to Sunday Times editor Sinha Ratnatunga for defaming the president. Elsewhere, in Angola, on Oct. 27, 2000, the freelance journalist Rafael Marques was sentenced to six-months’ imprisonment — suspended for five years — by the Angolan Supreme Court.
The imposition of these sentences often means that, if a further criminal offense is committed within the period of the suspended sentence, the editor or journalist faces the possibility of serving the original sentence as well as any sentence awarded for a subsequent alleged offense. As a result, such suspended sentences effectively ban the journalist or editor from doing his/her job and is an attempt to censor the media.
No journalist should ever be imprisoned for what he or she writes and the use of lengthy suspended sentences is merely another method of censorship.
The Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations urges authorities to call a halt to using criminal defamation laws and the practice of awarding long suspended sentences and/or heavy bails as methods to force journalists into conformity.
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COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations at their meeting in Namibia, on Sunday, May 6, 2001, agreed concerning the press freedom situation in Cuba:
That there is no freedom of speech nor of the press as the ruling regime has practiced total censorship and annihilation of freedom of the press, ideas and opinions for the past 42 years;
That independent journalists in Cuba are the target of constant persecution and that recently the Cuban government has also repeated its attacks on foreign correspondents on the island, expelling one in February for having criticized it;
That a number of independent news agencies have suffered technical disruption of their telephone equipment, hindering their communication with the outside world;
That the government accuses journalists of high treason and rebellion for merely exercising the human right to free speech and criticizing the government;
That the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ Declaration of Principles of Freedom on Expression establishes that “freedom of expression, in all its forms and manifestations, is a fundamental and inalienable right inherent in all people…” and also stipulates that “prior censorship, interference or direct or indirect pressure on any expression, opinion or information disseminated through any means of oral communication…restrictions of the free flow of ideas and opinions, as well as the forced publication of information and the creation of obstacles to the free flow of information violate the right to freedom of expression”; and
That freedom of expression is not something that states grant, but a fundamental right.
The Coordinating Committee reiterates its protest at the repression of freedom of expression and of the press in Cuba on the part of the government;
To denounce the Cuban government for the systemic and continued persecution of independent and foreign journalists for exercising the fundamental right to impart information and for curtailing the right of the Cuban people to be fully informed.
To call upon international organizations to send their protest to the Cuban government with the aim of its putting an end to the continued violations of human rights and in particular freedom of expression and of the press; and
To urge the Cuban authorities to immediately release journalists jailed for criticizing the government or simply carrying out their job of informing the people about matters of general interest.
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COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
Members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations at their meeting on Sunday, May 6, in Namibia agreed concerning the situation of the press in Venezuela:
That there is a clear official tendency to restrict the free practice of journalism by threats and legal actions and open, frontal pressure is being put on the print media, publishers and journalists for disagreeing with official policy
That in this regard the intractable orientation of the government is aimed at exercising control of information through a form of verbal terrorism by the government and official policy does not hesitate to incite public hatred of publications that are not unrestricted supporters of the regime and it has not doubted in describing, as well as their publishers, journalists and columnists, as doing work against society, consequently labeling them anti-social media
That the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression establishes that “freedom of expression, in all its forms and manifestations, is a fundamental and inalienable right inherent in all people…” and also stipulates that “prior censorship, interference or direct or indirect pressure on any expression, opinion or information disseminated through any means of oral communication…restrictions of the free flow of ideas and opinions, as well as the forced publication of information and the creation of obstacles to the free flow of information violate the right to freedom of expression.”
That Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought and expression. This right includes freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing, in print, in the form of art or through any other medium of one’s choice”
That the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999 provides for the right to truthful, opportune and impartial information and that the Advisory Opinion OC 5-85 of 1985 of the Inter-American Human Rights Court on licensing of journalists said that “it would not be lawful to invoke society’s right to be informed truthfully in order to justify a regime of prior censorship supposedly designed to eliminate news that would be false according to the censor’s criteria”
The Coordinating Committee resolves to express its concern for the future of freedom of expression in Venezuela and at the same time to call upon the legislative and judicial authorities not to base themselves on such constitutional precepts as “opportune, truthful and impartial information” in order to enact an eventual “Press Law” that would definitively curtail the practice of free journalism, which is essential in an open and democratic society, as is enshrined in the Pact of San Jose signed by Venezuela.
To urge in particular the judicial and legislative branches of the Venezuelan government not to regard civil offenses such as contempt, libel and defamation not subject to statutes of limitation
To reiterate to President Hugo Chavez that he should cease his policy of aggression and attacks on freedom of expression and on journalists
To urge human rights and press freedom organizations and the democratic governments of the world to keep a close watch on the situation of freedom of the press in Venezuela and repudiate authorities’ abuse of power.
