(WAN/IFEX) – China’s most prominent dissident, Wei Jingsheng, will be the keynote speaker at a special conference on freedom of expression to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, on 31 March 1998. Mr Wei was allowed to leave China for the United States last November for medical treatment, after serving eighteen years in prison for his […]
(WAN/IFEX) – China’s most prominent dissident, Wei Jingsheng, will be the
keynote speaker at a special conference on freedom of expression to be held
in Stockholm, Sweden, on 31 March 1998. Mr Wei was allowed to leave China
for the United States last November for medical treatment, after serving
eighteen years in prison for his activities in favour of democracy.
The Stockholm conference, which is a special initiative taken by the World
Association of Newspapers to mark its 50th anniversary, will examine the
relationship between the struggles for freedom of the press and other forms
of free expression.
Organized jointly with the London-based magazine “Index on Censorship”, this
unique event will bring together personalities from journalism, literature,
cinema, music and the arts to examine the most effective forms of artistic
resistance to repression.
In three sessions, the conference will focus on countries where the fight
for freedom of expression has been won, on those where it is today in the
balance, and on those where the mantle of dictatorship has effectively
silenced all forms of dissent.
The event will take place within the framework of the Intergovernmental
Conference on Cultural Policies for Development (30 March – 2 April), being
organised by the Swedish government and UNESCO.
On 1 April, WAN will also organise the first-ever world meeting of newspaper
culture & arts editors in Stockholm.
WAN, which is based in Paris, is the global association for the newspaper
industry, grouping more than 15,000 newspapers in over 90 countries. Index
on Censorship, a publication of the Writers & Scholars Trust, is a
bi-monthly magazine which publishes the works of banned writers and
information and analysis on various censorship issues.
