Gambia: World Press Freedom Day Message From AU Chairperson

The African Union is celebrating this year, 2012, as the year of Shared Values. These values are accepted and shared by all member States of our Union. Among them, there is one which is a fundamental human right entrenched in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: Freedom of Speech. This value is of critical importance because it feeds democracy and consolidates good governance, which our world needs. The demonstrations that occurred in 2011 in several African countries, mostly in North Africa or the more recent mobilization of the Senegalese people during the February and March Presidential election confirm, once more, that freedom of speech is indeed one of the most invaluable human rights, and a source of social transformation. Most importantly, all those who believed that their societies could evolve and develop without freedom of speech learned, at their own expense, that progress must follow the path of freedom and the respect of human rights, otherwise their citizens might turn against them.

Meanwhile, the freedom of speech that was suppressed, for too long, made way for the freedom of the press that we are celebrating today. In this context, I can only fully embrace the theme that was chosen by the United Nations for this year's celebration: « New Voices: Media Freedom Helping to Transform Societies ».

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