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UK SECTION |
The AEJ is active across the continent
of Europe. Please visit its website, www.aej.org,
and check AEJ Newsletters
for information about what it is doing for its members |
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World Press Freedom Day
2012 Welcome
and opening remarks by William Horsley |
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A very warm welcome to this public debate marking
World Press Freedom Day. I’m William Horsley, one of the team
who’ve worked for what seems like many weeks to prepare for this event.
Special mention to Tim Gopsill who put together the information packs you
have on yours seats, and to Anthony Longden and Colin Bickler. I’ll be brief. Thomson Reuters Foundation
has generously given us the use of this fine auditorium, and help from your
fine people to stage the debate and the reception that will follow. The BBC
College of Journalism is recording us, and the video will be posted soon
afterwards on the BBC CoJo Channel on Youtube. Vital sponsorship has come
from several well-known media organisations, as you see on screen. The event
is held in association with the UK National Commission for UNESCO. And we
have had the guiding hand of the Society of Editors, representing the big
guns and the infantry of the nation’s news media. We have brought together a high-powered panel. In
a few moments they will lead this evening’s debate, under the expert
conductor’s baton of Clive Anderson, of the BBC’s Unreliable
Evidence and many other programmes. First, on behalf of the UK Press Freedom Network
of journalists and freedom of expression groups, we have a short tribute and
a ministerial message. The International News Safety Institute, based in
this building , keeps careful count of the journalists worldwide who die on
assignment. Over the past 12 months, INSI has established that at least 121
journalists or media workers have died. Of them, 95 are known or suspected to
have been deliberately targeted and killed because of their work –
including, of course, many during the Arab Spring uprisings and in Syria this
year. I’d like to ask you if possible now to stand to pay respect to
those who have died. [INSI rollcall on screen
– names of killed journalists duration (121 names)] Thank you. Now to the matter in hand. We invited
a government representative to come and take part in this debate, because as
we are all keenly aware, issues surrounding media freedom and the law –
and the relationship with government power – are now hotly contested
and possibly in flux, here and abroad. As many of you know, UNESCO took the lead in drawing
up a UN Action Plan on Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity,
involving every part of the UN family, its headquarters and field missions.
The UN badly needs the active support of the UK government and of the
world’s leading media to make that plan work and reduce the number of
journalists, many of them locals employed from London or New York, who are
silenced by targeted killings or being jailed on trumped up charges by
repressive governments – often because they reported on issues of corruption
or abuse of power. |
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Strasbourg:
Journalists’ Foe or Friend? Media Freedom and the Rule of Law in Europe Debate held at the
Thomson-Reuters Building in London. Organised by the UK Press Freedom Network
(including the AEJ) and the UK Society of Editors, in association with the UK
National Commission for UNESCO Jeremy Browne, FCO Minister (video) Debate, chaired by Clive
Anderson Lord Fowler Geoffrey Robertson QC Bob Satchwell Aidan White Closing: Tim Large, Editor of
Thomson Reuters Foundation News Services Video
(YouTube), including the roll-call of 121 killed journalists, Jeremy Browne's
address and the debate Synopsis of ECHR judgments
involving UK journalists Many of us see that as one very powerful reason
for the UK to refrain from pulling out of UNESCO, as the government itself
has raised as a possibility, as early as next year. The UK’s plans for reform of the Human
Rights Court in Strasbourg have divided opinion too, as we shall hear. A
number of other European states, including Austria, stood out against some of
the UK’s original proposals on the grounds they could curtail human
rights by restricting access to the court. Those are all legitimate and necessary points for
open debate – and for more government transparency. In fact, what we
have received for today is a recorded video message to this meeting from the
British Foreign Office Minister for Human Rights, Jeremy Browne, which we can
now see. Straight after the minister’s message, it’s over to
Clive Anderson for the main event. Thank you! |
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