DUSHANBE, May 3, Asia-Plus – The safety of journalists is the topic of this year”s World Press Freedom Day, the 10th anniversary of the creation of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Colombia was chosen to mark this anniversary as it is the country of the newspaper publisher Guillermo Cano Isaza, after whom the World Press Freedom Prize was named. Guillermo Cano was assassinated in front of the office of his paper, El Espectador, in Bogotá, in December 1986, at the order of the drug barons he exposed in his work as a journalist.
In his message for the Day, the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, calls for improved safety for journalists and invites us to “commemorate media professionals who have lost their lives, and honor those who bring us information despite danger and risk. Above all, let us appreciate the intimate relationship between securing the safety of journalists and realizing our own freedoms. Our ability to act as informed citizens of the world depends on a media that can work freely and safely.”
The two-day seminar on press freedom, the safety of journalists and impunity, opened today morning with a tribute to Guillermo Cano and the inauguration of his bust in Medellin”s Parque de Bolivar with the participation of Sergio Fajardo Valderrama, Mayor of Medellin; Ana Maria Busquets de Cano, widow of Guillermo Cano Isaza; and Abdul Waheed Khan, Assistant UNESCO Director-General for Communication and Information.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that about 580 journalists worldwide were killed in the line of duty between January 1992 and August 2006. It says that 71.4 percent of those killed were murdered, 18.4 percent died in crossfire or in circumstances related to combat and 10 percent in other dangerous assignments. Print reporters face the greatest risk of death, according to the CPJ.
According to the CPJ, 85 percent of journalist murders in the last 15 years did not give rise to investigation or prosecution. It also reports that only in seven percent of the cases that were followed by investigation, prosecution and conviction, were those who ordered the killings brought to justice.
The large number of journalists killed and the frequent impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators show the need to reinforce the commitment of the international community which adopted two decisions to fight this problem: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1738 in 2006 and the resolution adopted by UNESCO”s General Conference in 1997 both condemning and seeking to limit violence against journalists.
UN Resolution 1738 reaffirms that journalists in conflict situations must enjoy the protection provided by international law. It further recalls the legal obligation of states parties to the Geneva Conventions to search and bring to trial people responsible for grave breaches against the Conventions. Similarly, the 1997 resolution adopted by UNESCO”s General Conference condemns assassination and acts of violence against journalists as crimes against society and urges measures to end their impunity.
World Press Freedom Day is a day designated by the United Nations to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and to remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993, the day is celebrated each year on May 3
, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in 1991.
UNESCO marks World Press Freedom Day by conferring the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on a deserving individual, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defense and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger. Created in 1887, the prize is awarded on the recommendation of an independent jury of 14 news professionals. Names are submitted by regional and international non-governmental organizations working for press freedom, and by UNESCO member states.
