Newsletters

January 15, 2001

NEWSLETTER OF THE WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE
FOR ITS AFFILIATES AND CONTRIBUTORS
AND OTHER MEDIA LEADERS

President Clinton Lauds WPFC, Charter for a Free Press

U.S. President Bill Clinton has praised the principles of the World Press Freedom Committee’s Charter for a Free Press, a statement of global free-press ideals, as “an important step for democracy.”

The 10-point Charter incorporates provisions approved by journalists from 34 countries at a London conference called by WPFC in 1987. Subsequently, it has been endorsed by countless journalists and by world leaders including United Nations Secretaries General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan and UNESCO Directors General Federico Mayor and Koichiro Matsuura.

“I commend the World Press Freedom Committee for its work to make freedom of the press a principle recognized by every nation,” Clinton said.

The Charter, in its first point, declares: “Censorship, direct or indirect, is unacceptable; thus laws and practices restricting the right of the news media freely to gather and distribute information must be abolished ....”

Clinton is the first U.S. president to publicly recognize WPFC’s efforts in promoting the Charter. Attached as appendices are full texts of Mr. Clinton’s letter to WPFC Chairman James H. Ottaway, Jr., and of the Charter.

Ottaway, vice president of Dow Jones & Company and chairman of Ottaway Newspapers, hailed Clinton’s stand for press freedom. He said President Clinton “could leave no more honorable legacy than this strong support for the fundamental human rights guaranteed in the United States of America by the First Amendment and throughout the world by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19.”

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Chilean Journalist Gets Grant to Fight Charges

The Fund Against Censorship, administered by the World Press Freedom Committee on behalf of nine free-press groups comprising the global Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, has awarded a $5,000 grant to Chilean journalist Alejandra Matus to help her fight criminal charges resulting from publication of her investigative work, “El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena” - “The Black Book of Chilean Justice.”

Matus, now exiled in Miami, is accused of violating Article 6b of Chile’s State Security Law for alleged “insults” to members of the judiciary in her book, banned in Chile in April 1999.

Matus’ book exposes Chile’s notorious lack of an independent judiciary and presents a scathing critique of judicial corruption during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The charges against her were filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals by Supreme Court Judge Servando Jordán, himself one of the main targets of the book.

The Fund Against Censorship grant will help Matus pay legal costs in the case. A recent court ruling in Chile upheld an order for her arrest. This decision, by Santiago Appeals Court Judge Jaime Rodriguez, effectively blocks any new appeals in the case and could keep Matus from returning to her country for at least 13 years.

“I am very thankful to the World Press Freedom Committee for awarding me this grant and giving me their moral support,” said Matus. “I am not only fighting an unjust set of laws that has violated my fundamental human rights. I am also fighting for the right of the Chilean people to demand accountability from their public officials.”

Matus also has filed a complaint with the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming violation of her freedom of expression and attacks on her physical integrity. That case is pending.

“We sincerely hope that the Fund Against Censorship grant will be of material help to Ms. Matus in obtaining strong legal representation in her fight against Chile’s unjust laws,” said Marilyn Greene, WPFC’s executive director. “We intend that it also convey to public officials in Chile and elsewhere the message that they are the servants, and not the rulers, of the nation’s citizens.”

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Australian to Head UNESCO Press Freedom Unit

Martin Hadlow, 53, an Australian with  more than 30 years’ association with news media, has been named director of UNESCO’s Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FED) Unit of the organization’s Communication Program, succeeding Alain Modoux.

Hadlow joined UNESCO in 1990 as Asian regional communication adviser, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He moved to Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 1994 to concentrate on UNESCO’s media aid projects in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and in 1998 to his most recent post in Amman, Jordan, as UNESCO’s communication adviser for the Middle East region.

His appointment comes as press freedom groups watch closely a changing of the guard at UNESCO in the communication field.

Modoux, who succeeded Henrikas Yushkiavitshus as assistant director general for communication, is expected to retire in May when he reaches UNESCO’s retirement age of 60. UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura is expected to then appoint Abdul Waheed Khan of India to the overall Communication ADG post.

Before UNESCO, Hadlow worked in Malaysia in the ASEAN-Australia Media Program and at the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcast Development in Kuala Lumpur, in India and Pakistan.

He had extensive experience in radio news editing and production in both public and private broadcasting in Australia and New Zealand. He held senior radio jobs in the Solomon Islands, Hong Kong and Papua-New Guinea. As a trainer, he wrote a UN broadcast manual translated into Cambodian, Vietnamese and Sinhala, and, later, a profile in Cambodia, resulting in creation of the Cambodia Communications Institute. He attended the East-West Center in Hawaii and universities in New Zealand and Britain.

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UN Steps Into the ‘Digital Divide’

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has chosen former Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres to launch a UN task force aimed at bridging the so-called “digital divide” in communication technology between the developed and developing worlds.

Figueres is backed up by a 20-member advisory group heavily loaded with government and industry leaders, but no representatives of the press, even though a major UN conference in mid-November indicated that Annan’s administration is interested in the content of new information technologies as well as in hardware and software issues.

Some speakers at the UN’s annual TV Forum spoke in terms reminiscent of New World Information and Communication Order language, referring to “neo-colonialist domination” and information “haves” and “have-nots.”

“If the ‘digital divide’ is not bridged in two years, the North-South divide will become permanent,” said Kensaku Hogen, head of the UN information department.

Dealing with the disparity is a UN priority, he said, claiming that the current world communication system only “promotes the cultural models of those who are technologically empowered.” The Internet, he added, should “give voice to the voiceless.”

In a positive sign, when representatives from Third World countries offered up NWICO-like demands for the UN to set quotas for developing world news on TV, an Indian member of Annan’s personal staff quickly responded that there can be no UN “codes or quotas; those days are behind us.” But the same staffer had commented earlier, somewhat bitterly, that “What’s news is what’s important to news editors in London and Atlanta.”

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Journalism Still a Dangerous Job

Year-end reports by press freedom groups indicate that news reporting continues to be a high-risk occupation. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said 24 journalists died in the pursuit of their work last year, down from 34 in 1999.

Reporters sans Frontieres, based in Paris, reported 26 deaths. Numbers vary according to each group’s definition of whether a journalist was on the job when killed.

In the Americas, 19 journalists were killed during the year, according to the Inter American Press Association.

CPJ found that 16 of last year’s journalist deaths were murders, as opposed to random fatalities associated with war or natural disaster. Such findings indicate that special identification for journalists would do little to enhance their safety. Indeed, such badges could make a journalist even more vulnerable to attacks by those who do not wish to have the news reported.

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OAS Human Rights Panel Approves Press Freedom Declaration

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, at its fall session in Washington, D.C., approved a 13-article Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, thus strengthening its previous calls on governments in the Americas to recognize and respect the importance of press freedom.

The Declaration, in its Article 11, reiterates the Commission’s 1995 recommendation that all OAS member nations with criminal defamation or desacato laws on the books should eliminate these. Such laws have been used for years to shield public officials from the scrutiny of their constituents and the news media.

The Commission said then that in a democracy, the actions of public officials should be more, not less, transparent than those of private citizens.

Nevertheless, only Argentina and Paraguay have eliminated their insult laws. Such laws continue to exist in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Freedom of expression, the Declaration says, “is an indispensable requirement for the very existence of a democratic society.”

Articles in the Declaration reaffirm, among other rights, access to information; freedom from prior censorship; protection of sources; and safety from threats, intimidation and murder.

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McEwen Named to Lead North American Broadcasters Group

Veteran Canadian broadcaster Michael McEwen is the new secretary-general of the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA). He succeeds Bill Roberts, who left to become president and CEO of Toronto’s Vision TV.

McEwen was most recently president of Canadian Digital Television. During a 30-year broadcast career he also worked in executive roles with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and served as president and chairman of the board for NABA.

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WPFC Backs Journalists in Russia, Czech Republic

As Russian officials continue to crack down on journalism personalities symbolizing press independence, WPFC is again speaking out and identifying patterns of official harassment.

In mid-December, for the third time since WPFC led a delegation of free-press groups to Moscow in July to support struggling Russian journalists, WPFC Chairman James H. Ottaway, Jr. wrote to President Vladimir Putin, pointing out abuses against news media. This time, he highlighted a pattern of judicial harassment against Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky, Media-Most chief Vladimir Gusinsky and environmental reporter Grigory Pasko.

In each case, Ottaway noted, “a court has already found the accused not guilty of official charges, or they have been amnestied. Yet, prosecutors and courts insist on retrying them. ... We are forced to conclude that the situation of the free and independent press in Russia has continued to deteriorate since the visit to Moscow that we coordinated in July of the Russian Press Support Group, made up of six global free press organizations.”

The Group had pledged to keep a watch over the press freedom situation in Russia. While Putin has often reiterated his commitment to press freedom, he told an interviewer asking about his relations with private media moguls: “The State has a cudgel, with which it needs to strike once only. But to the head. We haven’t used that cudgel so far. ... If we get really angry, we won’t hesitate to use it. ...”

In the Czech Republic, political attempts to curb the independence of Czech public TV news prompted a sit-in of TV journalists and mass demonstrations in downtown Prague. In support of the journalists, Ottaway and other WPFC staffers wrote to Czech government leaders, including President Vaclav Havel: “In true democracies, government bureaucrats and political officials have no influence over the news content or editorial opinions of news media, whether those media are publicly financed or privately owned.”

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BRIEFLY: More than 150 journalists gathered last week in Dili, capitol of East Timor, for the inauguration of the East Timor Lorosae Journalists Association. WPFC helped fund the congress.
 

Attachment

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

December 20, 2000

Mr. James H. Ottaway, Jr.
Chairman
World Press Freedom Committee
11690-C Sunrise Valley Drive
Reston, Virginia  20191-1409

Dear Jim:

 For the first time in human history, a majority of the world’s people live under democratic forms of government. The spread of democracy is the greatest movement of our time. In every country, freedom of the press has proved indispensable to the growth of progress and liberty. The First Amendment to our Constitution has not only established a bulwark of freedom here; it has also served as a beacon of inspiration to all people.

 In my efforts as President to advance freedom throughout the world, I have tirelessly promoted freedom of the press. I have urged an end to terror against journalists, the release of journalists held as political prisoners, and speech unrestrained by government interference. I have supported international agencies that monitor and protect freedom of the press. And I have advocated for the creation of a new office to pursue this mission of democracy in the Americas -- the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression within the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States.

 I commend the World Press Freedom Committee for its work to make freedom of the press a principle recognized by every nation. By convening a world gathering of leaders in the media to adopt the Charter for a Free Press, the World Press Freedom Committee took an important step for democracy. I welcome this statement for further advancing the inalienable right of free expression.

Sincerely,

Bill Clinton 

Charter for a Free Press

A free press means a free people.  To this end, the following principles, basic to an unfettered flow of news and information both within and across national borders, deserve the support of all those pledged to advance and protect democratic institutions.

1. Censorship, direct or indirect, is unacceptable; thus laws and practices restricting the right of the news media freely to gather and distribute information must be abolished, and government authorities, national or local, must not interfere with the content of print or broadcast news, or restrict access to any news source.

2. Independent news media, both print and broadcast, must be allowed to emerge and operate freely in all countries.

3. There must be no discrimination by governments in their treatment, economic or otherwise, of the news media within a country.  In those countries where government media also exist, the independent media must have the same free access as the official media have to all material and facilities necessary to their publishing or broadcasting operations.

4. States must not restrict access to newsprint, printing facilities and distribution systems, operation of news agencies, and availability of broadcast frequencies and facilities.

5. Legal, technical and tariff practices by communications authorities which inhibit the distribution of news and restrict the flow of information are condemned.

6. Government media must enjoy editorial independence and be open to a diversity of viewpoints.  This should be affirmed in both law and practice.

7. There should be unrestricted access by the print and broadcast media within a country to outside news and information services, and the public should enjoy similar freedom to receive foreign publications and foreign broadcasts without interference.

8. National frontiers must be open to foreign journalists.  Quotas must not apply, and applications for visas, press credentials and other documentation requisite for their work should be approved promptly.  Foreign journalists should be allowed to travel freely within a country and have access to both official and unofficial news sources, and be allowed to import and export freely all necessary professional materials and equipment.

9. Restrictions on the free entry to the field of journalism or over its practice, through licensing or other certification procedures, must be eliminated.

10. Journalists, like all citizens, must be secure in their persons and be given full protection of law.  Journalists working in war zones are recognized as civilians enjoying all rights and immunities accorded to other civilians.