Vienna — RESOLUTION ON CYBERSPACE: Increasing attempts by governments to control the content of the Internet caused serious concern to world journalism leaders meeting in Boston for the 49th General Assembly of the International Press Institute (IPI).
In many parts of the world, it is clear that governments are seeking to enforce political censorship and/or surveillance, said editors and publishers from around the world.
News media in cyberspace must be granted the same free speech rights as traditional print and broadcast media.
The countries that make up the UNESCO General Conference have formally accepted this view by endorsing the Sofia Declaration of 1997 on independent and pluralistic media, IPI noted. It said: "The access to and the use of these new media should be afforded the same freedom of expression protections as traditional media."
This was echoed by the UN Human Rights Commission's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression in an official report this spring saying: "On- line expression should be guaranteed the same protection as is awarded to other forms of expression."
IPI members warned there is a clear danger that stricter controls over cyberspace could trigger new attempts to control traditional news media outlets.
Legitimate concerns about defamation, fraud, paedophilia, organised crime and the like are normally the subject of existing laws that can be invoked in countries where alleged offences may originate, IPI said. But free speech and press freedom must be the rule.
RESOLUTION ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
Too many governments, even among established democracies, seem to believe that the public must be less than fully informed, and that transparency is a virtue only for others, world journalism leaders agreed at the International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress in Boston.
They urged the world's governments and intergovernmental organisations to honour the public's right to know the information that is held by official bodies.
Countries that do not already have freedom of information laws granting maximum access to officially held and collected information and data should pass them as soon as possible. Countries that have such laws but do not honour them should do so. Countries that list broad exceptions to the release of officially held information should make them as narrow as possible. And freedom of information laws must never become disguised state secret laws by lists of exceptions.
Editors and publishers from around the world, meeting on IPI's 50th anniversary, stressed that access should be without delay, and for all members of the public, lay or professional, journalists or non-journalists.
Governmental systems of classifying confidential information should also provide for rigorous declassification systems, with frequent and automatic reviews aimed at releasing as much information as possible as soon as possible.
RESOLUTION ON WORSENING MEDIA SITUATION IN YUGOSLAVIA
Members of the International Press Institute (IPI), gathered in Boston for the 49th annual IPI General Assembly and World Congress, condemn the government- imposed controls on the independent media in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as unacceptable.
IPI urged the government of President Slobodan Milosevic to repeal all oppressive laws and practices aimed at intimidating and silencing critical media.
On the eve of elections in the country the political crisis is deepening, IPI said. It is getting ever more difficult for journalists to do their work properly as independent newspapers as well as private TV and radio stations are being destroyed economically.
Repressive methods used by the Serbian government include exorbitant fines levied for newspapers critical of the regime or the army.
Over the past year, almost all leading independent and opposition media have either received heavy fines under Serbia's strict media law or had their equipment confiscated for allegedly breaching telecommunications regulations. Government restrictions on newsprint imports have resulted in significant price increases.
Court cases, unjust and exaggerated fines and other economic sanctions have become the tools of a new, effective form of censorship.
The government cuts the independent media off from official sources of information, banning journalists from official events and statements. Beside threatening Serbian journalists, the Belgrade government also hinders foreign journalists from doing their work by denying them visas.
RESOLUTION ON IRAN
The International Press Institute (IPI), meeting in Boston for its 49th General Assembly, strongly condemned the latest crackdown on Iran's independent media.
IPI members criticised the indefinite closure of numerous newspapers and magazines since 23 April and the imprisonment of several journalists after a speech by Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at Tehran's Grand Mosque attacking the country's pro-reform publications.
The banning of the publications coincided with the jailing of Latif Safari, publisher of the previously banned daily, Neshat, and Akbar Ganji of Sobh-e- Emrooz, for allegedly undermining the work of the government. At least three other journalists are currently serving prison terms because of their work. Mashallah Shamsolvaezin is serving a 3-year term. Abdollah Nouri is serving a five-year term and Mohsen Kadivar an 18-month sentence. Just before IPI's general assembly, the prominent lawyer and journalist Meherangiz Kar was arrested after being summoned to appear before the Revolutionary Court.
Iran's parliament also passed a series of amendments to existing press legislation, approved on 17 and 18 April, which bans criticism of the constitution, makes writers and publishers liable for prosecution under the press law, prohibits individuals who belong to illegal groups or are deemed to have undermined Iran's Islamic system of government from practising journalism, and prohibits papers from re-launching under a new name.
The IPI General Assembly called these actions a flagrant violation of the everyone's right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, as guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While appreciating the reform efforts of Iran's President Khatami, IPI also called on him to condemn the actions and to do everything in his power to ensure the immediate release of the imprisoned journalists and the re-opening of the banned publications.
RESOLUTION ON AFRICA
Censorship and re pression of the media in Africa were condemned by editors and publishers at the 49th General Assembly of the International Press Institute (IPI) in Boston, USA.
Editors, publishers and leading journalists, many from African countries, denounced the many governments in Africa which have trampled on media freedoms. The governments of these countries were called upon to scrap the laws that give them the power to exercise censorship, and to open their media and facilitate the free flow of information.
The IPI, which represents over 2,000 editors and publishers throughout the world, listed these offenders as: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, who were described as the worst, with Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, and Uganda differing only in the degrees of repression.
RESOLUTION ON SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Assaults on journalists and photographers and the destruction of their equipment during the "land invasions" by so-called "war veterans" in Zimbabwe were condemned by editors and publishers at the 49th General Assembly of the International Press Institute (IPI) in Boston, Mass.
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The IPI, which represents 2,000 editors and publishers throughout the world, vigorously criticised the Zimbabwean government and its police for failing to take action to prevent the attacks or to arrest the culprits.
The IPI expresses its deep concern that these inroads on press freedom are but one manifestation of the serious deterioration in media freedom that is taking place in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and which is destroying the fledgling multi-party democracies that have recently been created.
The IPI appeals to the offending governments to end this dangerous abuse of freedom and to return to the principles of Article XIX of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the media freedom codes of African institutions such as the Organisation of African Unity.
IPI noted that the countries in addition to Zimbabwe which were the worst offenders included Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Liberia, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, and Zambia.
RESOLUTION ON INDIA AND PAKISTAN
The International Press Institute (IPI), meeting in Boston for its 49th General Assembly, urged the governments of India and Pakistan to remove the ban on the circulation of each other's newspapers in their respective countries.
For further information, contact IPI at Spiegelgasse 2, A-1010 Vienna, Austria, tel: +43 1 512 90 11, fax: +43 1 512 90 14, e-mail: Michael Kudlak at ipi.vienna@xpoint.at, or Barbara Trionfi at info@freemedia.at, Internet site: www.freemedia.at.
The information contained in this press release is the sole responsibility of IPI. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit IPI.
