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Press
Release..............................
UNESCAP News Services
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Date 28
April 2004
Press Release No: L/18/2004 (SG/SM/9279; OBV/416)
FREEDOM, INDEPENDENCE OF MEDIA ESSENTIAL FOR
BUILDING BETTER, FAIRER WORLD, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL IN MESSAGE
ON WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY
Following is Secretary-General Kofi Annan's message
on World Press Freedom Day, observed 3 May:
Information is, undoubtedly, a source of power.
Those who have access to a free and independent media have more
options, as well as the information they need to take better
advantage of them. World Press Freedom Day is an important reminder
of the contribution that journalists play in the information
age, especially in the protection of human rights and the promotion
of development.
This day is also one on which we should remember
and pay tribute to journalists who have been killed in the line
of duty, or whose reporting has led to their imprisonment and
detention. The Committee to Protect Journalists continues to
document sombre facts about the dangers and hostility faced
by journalists. Thirty-six journalists were killed in 2003,
and at least 17 have been killed in the first three months of
2004. Their deaths were the result of their efforts to bring
us the facts, to deliver first-hand accounts of important events,
to offer perspectives on the trends of our time -- in short,
the essential work of daily journalism. Indeed, some were deliberately
targeted because of what they were reporting or because of their
affiliation with a news organization. According to the Committee
to Protect Journalists, a further 136 journalists were in jail
at the end of 2003 simply because of their profession.
Journalism, as a profession, has been resolute
in the face of such danger. But the continuing threat to their
personal and professional integrity must concern all of us who
rely on the media as an agent of free expression and as an often
very lonely means of rousing the world's conscience.
Those issues and events need not be immediate
or traumatic. While the war in Iraq has been a major recent
preoccupation for press and politicians alike, battles of another
kind -- against poverty, discrimination and disease, for example
-- also warrant attention. Last year on World Press Freedom
day, I asked why some issues and situations attract coverage,
while others of seemingly equal importance fail to achieve critical
mass. The question remains relevant today. Just as it should
not take the collapse of a state for the international community
to act, so it should not take a full-fledged crisis to attract
the media spotlight. There are important stories to be told
even in peacetime, about things that affect the normal everyday
lives of children, women and men the world over.
On World Press Freedom Day, let us reaffirm our
commitment to the freedom and independence of the media as an
essential requirement for building a better and fairer world.
And let us all pledge to do our utmost to ensure that journalists
-- the men and women charged with helping us understand ourselves
and our world -- are able to do their vital work in safety and
without fear.
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