International Freedom of the Press Day

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With the International Day of Press Freedom ( English World Press Freedom Day ) since 1994, every year on May 3rd, attention has been drawn to violations of press freedom and the fundamental importance of free reporting for the existence of democracies .

history

The day of action was initiated by UNESCO . As a result, on December 20, 1993 , the UN General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day.

The background to the creation of the day is the Windhoek Declaration . This declaration was adopted on May 3, 1991 at a UN / UNESCO seminar on the promotion of an independent and pluralistic press in Windhoek ( Namibia ). The central message of the declaration is that free, pluralistic and independent media are an extremely important characteristic of democratic societies.

Annual documentation of the events

Freedom of the press, according to Reporters Without Borders, 2021
  • Good location
  • Satisfactory location
  • Identifiable problems
  • Difficult situation
  • Very serious situation

    • Organizations such as Reporters Without Borders use this World Day to draw attention to arbitrary and violent measures such as the imprisonment or killing of journalists. According to the annual documentation published by RoG in Geneva on May 3, 2005, 2004 was a particularly ominous year for the cause of freedom of the press and freedom of expression: In Iraq , 19 journalists died, according to RoG, and 15 were hostage- taken victims . And in the first four months of 2005, 22 journalists were killed around the world, nine of them in Iraq. On January 1, 2005, 107 media workers were also in custody, 26 of them in the People's Republic of China and 22 in Cuba .

    Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize

    Since 1997, UNESCO has awarded the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on International Press Freedom Day in memory of the journalist Guillermo Cano Isaza, who was murdered on December 17, 1986 in front of his newspaper El Espectador in the Colombian capital Bogotá . The decision-making body is an independent jury made up of 14 professional journalists. Proposals for personalities to be honored are welcome from regional or international NGOs in the field of free reporting as well as from the UNESCO member states.

    See also

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. ^ General Assembly - Forty-eighth Session. (PDF) In: unric.org . Retrieved May 3, 2017 .