Newsletters

July 6, 2001

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

Windhoek II Shows Perils of “Improving” Good Guidelines

UNESCO’s May 3-8 conference in Windhoek, Namibia, marking the 10th anniversary of the landmark Windhoek 1991 Declaration, demonstrated that it is difficult at best and dangerous at worst to tinker with good and serviceable existing proclamations.

Among the final actions of the seminar was a hastily pushed-through “Charter on African Broadcasting 2001,” submitted by the AMARC organization and including several references to a “right to communicate,” a good-sounding code phrase for press restrictions. The Charter also recommends requiring minimum quotas of local and independent broadcast content. It advocates “community” radios, defined as those having “social agendas.”

Final Windhoek recommendations, reflecting input by labor groups, call on journalists to form unions and on media organizations to adopt codes of ethics designed to “promote positive coverage of women’s issues.” Establishment of a special freedom of expression monitor for Africa is also recommended.

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Media’s Only ‘Role’ is to Report the News

The news media’s job is to report news -- not to support particular social principles, WPFC Chairman James H. Ottaway said in a World Press Freedom Day message May 3 at the UN.

The announced theme for the occasion was “Fighting Racism and Promoting Diversity: the role of the free press.” But Ottaway, senior vice president of Dow Jones & Company, cautioned against governments assigning the press to fight the world’s ills. “A free and independent press best combats racism, intolerance and related evils precisely by being free and independent,” he said.

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Free Press Could Face Challenge at Durban Conference

Defenders of media freedom and independence from government interference are bracing for a fight at the UN’s upcoming “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” to be held in Durban, South Africa, Aug.30 - Sept. 7 under the auspices of UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson.

The World Press Freedom Committee, in a letter to Robinson, expressed concern over a statement by three international freedom of expression officials assigning to news media “a moral and social obligation” to fight racism and associated evils. “The press must not be assigned roles or obligations by outside forces,” and the Durban conference should make no such assertion, the WPFC letter said.

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Kremlin-Inspired Journalists Schism

With the blessings of the Kremlin, Alexander Liubimov, a TV public affairs producer once admired as an implementer of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost policies, has created a new Media Union as a breakaway from the mainstream Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ).

Under its president, Vsvelod Bogdanov, the RUJ has been highly critical of President Vladimir Putin’s actions against the independent press.

Liubimov has publicly advocated “new rules of the game, not only to protect journalists from authority, but also society from journalists.” The RUJ charged at an IFJ Congress in Seoul in mid-June that the Media Union was created with government cash. Liubimov says his funding is from “corporate money.”

The new union was unveiled in the presence of high government officials at a Russian media forum in Saint Petersburg. This was followed June 25-27 by a “World Congress for Information Cooperation,” where the breakaway group played a prominent role.

A similar meeting is scheduled in Moscow in mid-July sponsored by, among others, the Media Union and Gazprom-Media, a subsidiary of the government-controlled gas monopoly. The Kremlin has launched a major PR effort to get free press groups and other Western critics of Russian press policies to attend -- apparently to gain international recognition for the new union.

* * *

WPFC to Bush: Consider UNESCO’s Positive Press Freedom Record

UNESCO’s Communication Program “has become a major asset in the struggle to maintain and extend press freedom in the world” and this should be considered in deciding whether the United States should rejoin the UN agency, WPFC Chairman James H. Ottaway, Jr. wrote in a June 18 letter to President George W. Bush (Full text of the letter is attached as Appendix 1).

The US pulled out of UNESCO in 1984, citing the organization’s “attack upon a free flow of communications.” During the subsequent 12-year tenure of Director General Federico Mayor of Spain, many of the US objections were addressed and UNESCO became known as a champion of press freedom.

Nevertheless, free press advocates remain concerned about possible future directions of UNESCO, which is undergoing major staff and program reorganization. As a UNESCO member, the US could work more effectively against backsliding.

In a March letter to current Director General Koichiro Matsuura of Japan, Ottaway said that programs pressing for Internet controls in the name of “ethics” seem to have displaced press freedom as the communication sector’s first priority.

Matsuura insists he will continue to speak out against violations of press freedom and to provide practical help in training, reform of non-democratic press laws, support for the development of journalistic ethics, help in ending state TV monopolies and aid to independent media in conflict zones. UNESCO’s General Conference meets in Paris this fall to act on programs proposed for the coming two-year period.

* * *

Coordinating Committee Condemns News Restrictions

Members of the nine-group Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, meeting May 6 in Namibia following UNESCO’s Windhoek conference, expressed concern over a number of issues seen as threats to press freedom.

One resolution adopted by the group expresses the view that the UNESCO conference’s adoption of an “African Charter for Broadcasting 2001” and of final recommendations that include a call for troubling codes of ethics seem to represent “an attempt to limit press freedom and the public’s right to information.”

In other resolutions, the coordinating group:

Deplored threats against press freedom in Russia, including the dismantling of the independent editorial leaderships of the nationwide media outlets of the Media-MOST group;
Affirmed that “governments should not target broadcast facilities during war and conflict, as broadcast facilities are presumed, under international humanitarian law, to be civilian in nature, not military;
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;
Agreed, concerning Cuba, that there is no freedom of speech or press as the ruling regime has practiced total censorship and annihilation of freedom of the press, ideas and opinions for the past 42 years;
Expressed dismay that Namibia, host country for UNESCO’s second Windhoek conference on African media, itself imposes restrictions on freedom of the press by manipulating award of government advertising. It also attempted to limit coverage of non-conference news during the UNESCO meeting.

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New WPFC Book Sees Press Freedom As A Basic Need

A new WPFC book, Press Freedom in Our Genes: A Human Need, by Leonard R. Sussman, describes the development of press freedom from the pre-Christian era and defines it as not just an acquired right but as a basic human drive.

Sussman is a veteran international media scholar who served for many years as executive director of Freedom House and who continues to prepare annual assessments of global press freedom.

Sussman describes the inner drive for press freedom as “the DNA of freedom, the natural urge to shake the body free of physical bonds, free of external mental restrictions; freedom to think and express. ... In a word, press freedom is in our genes.”

Publication of the book represents one of several special features marking WPFC’s 25th anniversary year.

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Zimbabwe Media Under Severe Government Pressure

A five-person delegation to Zimbabwe, organized in May by the World Press Freedom Committee, confirmed after meetings with journalists and government officials that the regime of President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for more than 20 years, is intensifying a campaign against news media in advance of presidential elections next year. (A copy of the delegation’s findings is attached as Appendix 2).

Since the mission, the situation has worsened. Authorities in June refused to renew the work permit of David Blair of The Daily Telegraph, the last resident British reporter in Zimbabwe and the third foreign reporter ousted this year. The forced departures follow the government’s cancellation of accreditation of foreign journalists, requiring them to return to their home countries to reapply. Zimbabwe’s parliament is expected to act in August on a draconian and mislabeled “Freedom of Information Act,” drafted in secret by government officials and without consulting any independent journalists or media.

“I can assure you that it will be one more nail in the coffin for press freedom,” says Mark Chavunduka, editor of The Standard newspaper. Chavunduka and reporter Ray Choto were arrested and tortured in 1999 by Zimbabwe police following publication of a story about an attempted coup. (See below).

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Fund Against Censorship Provides Legal Aid to Journalists

Mark Chavunduka, editor of The Standard in Zimbabwe, is the recipient of a Fund Against Censorship grant to assist in his defense against charges of criminal defamation.

The Fund, administered by WPFC, is a joint activity of the nine-group Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations.

Other recent Fund Against Censorship grants are providing legal assistance to: Argentinean journalist Eduardo Kimel, facing criminal defamation charges following publication of The St. Patrick’s Massacre, an expose of the 1976 murder of three priests and two seminarians; Russian journalist Grigory Pasko, charged with spying for reporting on the Russian navy dumping nuclear waste into the Sea of Japan; Peruvian journalists Antero Gargurevich Oliva, Javier Tuamana Valera and Juan Jara Berrospi, imprisoned on terrorism charges.

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Santiago Canton named to Key OAS Post

Santiago Canton of Argentina, who has served since 1998 as the Organization of American States’ first special rapporteur for freedom of expression, will become executive secretary of the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACR) next month, succeeding Jorge Taiana in the job. No replacement for Canton has been named for the sensitive freedom of expression post, which has been funded largely by the United States but by few other countries within the Inter-American system.

Meanwhile, the Council of Europe has joined the trend to create such posts, and Africans attending UNESCO’s Windhoek 10th anniversary seminar called on the Organization of African Unity to do likewise. Naming of a press freedom advocate to such a position in Africa seems unlikely, however, as only six of the 50 OAU member states are considered to respect press freedom.

No budget has yet been provided for the new Council of Europe rapporteur, Gyula Hegyi of Hungary, who was appointed May 28 for an experimental year only. A Socialist member of the Hungarian Parliament and the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly since 1994, Hegyi, 50, formerly a journalist at the daily Magyar Hirlap,
produced in April a generally respected report on the state of press freedom among the 43 Council member-states.

At the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Freimut Duve of Germany was confirmed in May to a second three-year term as Representative on Freedom of the Media.

Abid Hussain of India, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression of the UN Human Rights Commission -- the first such post created -- has scheduled visits this year to Argentina, Peru, Egypt and Sri Lanka to investigate press freedom conditions. His sole official visit and report last year was to Albania. Hussain’s third three-year term expires next year, and new rules may preclude him from succeeding himself.

Appendix 1

June 18, 2001

President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing you, in my capacity as Chairman of the World Press Freedom Committee, about the question of the United States rejoining UNESCO.

I feel a special responsibility in this matter because my predecessor as WPFC Chairman, Harold W. Andersen, then the CEO of The Omaha World-Herald, and Leonard H. Marks, the WPFC General Counsel and former Director of USIA, served prominently on the State Department’s citizens’ panels to advise the U.S. Government in 1984 on whether it should leave the UN agency and, again, in 1985, on whether there had been enough change to justify reversing that decision.

In both cases, the WPFC staff provided assessments of UNESCO’s controversial Communication Program, inspired by the ominously labeled “New World Information and Communication Order.” Our findings at the time were that it was highly politicized and hostile to press freedom. That was one of the central considerations in the decisions both to leave UNESCO and to stay out of it.

I feel, therefore, obliged to tell you that the UNESCO Communication Program, as currently implemented, has become a major asset in the struggle to maintain and extend press freedom in the world.

This was true under the leadership of UNESCO’s former Director General Federico Mayor and, now, under his successor, Director General Koichiro Matsuura. They have both shown their dedication to the mandate of UNESCO’s Constitution to advance “the free flow of ideas by word and image.”

Among the UNESCO actions of direct aid to press freedom have been its substantive help under its SOS Media and other programs -- in partnership with free press groups -- to strengthen the material, professional and/or legal situations of the press in such post-conflict zones as Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Serbia; Angola, Burundi and Rwanda; and Cambodia, East Timor and Indonesia.

UNESCO’s series of regional journalists seminars in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Arab World, and Eastern Europe has produced a series of powerful and helpful declarations on press freedom principles. These were formally endorsed by the UNESCO General Conference of member-states. Those declarations have created meaningful pressure on authoritarian governments to honor their commitments therein to free speech and freedom of the press.

UNESCO inaugurated in 1997 an annual World Press Freedom Prize, awarded on the advice of an independent jury of eminent press leaders. Their first choice of a laureate was imprisoned Chinese journalist Gao Yu. That choice was maintained over the strenuous protests and threats of the Chinese
government.

UNESCO urged the United Nations to designate May 3 as World Press Freedom Day -- an annual commemoration that spotlights for publics, even in remote countries, the importance of free news media for democracy and development.

UNESCO’s International Program for Development of Communication has evolved criteria that stipulate that aid project grants should strengthen the independence of the press. UNESCO and its IPDC have fostered and funded on the Internet the International Freedom of Expression Network as a major
source of up-to-the-minute news of abuses against press freedom. This has very significantly enhanced the ability of press freedom organizations to move rapidly to defend journalists and independent news media wherever they are under attack.

These days, we find in the ongoing struggle for press freedom in the world that UNESCO is at our side, setting the example for other intergovernmental organizations and pointing out to them the dangers contained in proposals that harm the free flow of news and information.

As my predecessor Harold Andersen said at a WPFC dinner in Washington in honor of UNESCO Director General Mayor in 1992, there has been a “sea change at UNESCO,” when it comes to press freedom issues.

So, if UNESCO’s Communication Program was a major reason for the U.S. withdrawal, we can attest that it is no longer a reason for the United States to stay out of the Organization. This has been the case for a decade.

There were other reasons given for the U.S. withdrawal, notably waste and mismanagement. It is not within the WPFC’s competence to judge those areas of concern. But we do note that Director General Matsuura has embarked on a major program of management reform and that former Secretary of State
George Shultz, who implemented the U.S. withdrawal during the Reagan Administration, wrote on Sept. 28 of last year that he now supports U.S. reentry.

U.S. presence in UNESCO would not only constitute recognition that the agency has become a champion of press freedom. It would also serve to keep UNESCO on that press freedom-oriented course as many issues vital to the United States, such as the future of cyberspace news flows, are intensely
debated internationally. U.S. membership should encourage and reinforce UNESCO’s press freedom advocacy.

Sincerely,
James H. Ottaway, Jr.
Chairman

cc: Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Sen. Joseph Biden, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman, House International Relations Committee

Appendix 2

Press Freedom Mission to Zimbabwe, May 9 - 11, 2001

Executive Summary:

During a four-day mission to Harare, Zimbabwe, organized by the World Press Freedom Committee, it was apparent that journalists and news media there are under intense pressure, especially in the run-up to presidential elections in 2002. Given the complexity of Zimbabwe’s current social and political environment, it is impossible to examine the nation’s press freedom issues outside of the overall political context.

Interviews with government officials, journalists, clergy and non-profit group representatives yielded a picture of efforts by the ruling regime and its ZANU-PF political party supporters to curb scrutiny of government actions and to suppress criticism of the Mugabe regime, especially in the news media. We see a newly adopted broadcast law and a proposed new media law as further evidence of the government’s attempts to restrict reporting and control the news reaching Zimbabwe’s citizens.

Delegates:
David Dadge, International Press Institute, Vienna
Marilyn Greene, World Press Freedom Committee, Washington
Ronald Koven, World Press Freedom Committee, Paris
Raymond Louw, IPI; South African National Editors’ Forum, Johannesburg
Joe Mdhlela, Media Workers Association of South Africa, Johannesburg

Background:
Troubled for some time by reports of increasing pressure and restrictions on independent news media in Zimbabwe, the World Press Freedom Committee initiated an investigative mission to that country’s situation. The mission followed a May 3-5 African media conference sponsored by UNESCO in Windhoek, Namibia, on the 10th anniversary of the historic 1991 Windhoek Declaration of press freedom principles, and a May 6 meeting of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, hosted by the WPFC.

At its meeting in Windhoek, the Coordinating Committee delegated representatives to visit Zimbabwe for the purpose of investigating the deterioration of press freedom there.

In Harare, we set out to contact people concerned with and involved in Zimbabwe’s news media, for exposure to the widest possible range of views. Our goals were to obtain a full and objective picture of Zimbabwe’s press freedom situation; to encourage journalists to report independently; and to urge government officials to respect and support the news media’s right to seek and impart information.

Discussions with journalists, government officials, clergy and readers painted an alarming picture of the state of press freedom and, in parallel, the future of democracy in Zimbabwe.

Findings:
From conversations with government officials, the delegation learned that the government is in the advanced stages of drafting a "Freedom of Information Act" that is in fact a press law to control the news media through such devices as licensing of journalists in the guise of accreditation and the establishment of a government-created and controlled two-tier (statutory and "voluntary") press council system.

The delegation has found that in recent months, journalists in Zimbabwe have come under severe pressure from the government, which has reacted harshly to the media's attempts to report on developments in the country.

Throughout this period, violence against journalists has increased; foreign journalists have been expelled, and the government has sought to preserve the monopoly of the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation. Furthermore, government ministers have verbally abused journalists in public and used criminal defamation laws to silence critical reporting. Ministers have threatened to single out journalists individually as targets for attack.

In particular, the bombing at the offices and printing press of the Daily News this year and last and the subsequent failure to condemn these acts or institute a timely and full investigation has profound implications for the way in which the government views the media. The government has appeared to condone violence against journalists. This has created a climate of intimidation in the country.

The decision to rush new broadcasting legislation through Parliament has created a situation in which independent broadcast news stations appear to be precluded in advance of presidential elections next year.

Press freedom is supported by the rule of law; the erosion of the rule of law actively undermines this. Journalists have been victims of lawlessness.

The delegation calls on the government of Zimbabwe to:
-- uphold the rule of law;
-- meet its international obligations to the principles of press freedom and freedom of expression;
-- ensure the safety of journalists and carry out full and proper investigations of abuses against press freedom;
-- cease its campaign of intimidation against the news media;
-- uphold the judgment of the Supreme Court which removed the monopolistic rights of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. (In the event of the government’s continued failure to uphold this judgment, it should submit the new Broadcasting Act to constitutional scrutiny. If it passes that test, the government should ensure that the new ZBA be appointed speedily, and that it accelerates the regulatory processes to enable other broadcasting stations to begin airing well in advance of the 2002 election.)
-- halt the use of criminal defamation suits against journalists and remove from the statute books insult laws granting special protection to officialdom.