Call for a Minute’s Silence for Fallen Journalists on World Press Freedom Day
UNESCO has called for a minute's silence to take place in newsrooms around the world on World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, "to denounce the murder of journalists and to demand an end to impunity" for their killers.
Read the related blog post, "A Minute's Silence for Killed Journalists in Britain: A New Tradition is Born?" by William Horsley, journalist and member of the UK National Commission for UNESCO Communication and Information Committee.
According to the UK-based International News Safety Institute, 24 media workers have been confirmed killed this year so far, with an additional 14 cases under investigation to determine whether the killings were connected with the victims' work.
The UNESCO proposal for the minute of silence was adopted by the Council of the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) at its 27th session in Paris last month. The IPDC is a major forum in the UN system designed to develop free and pluralistic media with a global approach to democratic development.
A decision adopted on the safety of journalists stressed the responsibility of States to comply with their obligations under international law to end impunity and prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law.
The session also called on the UNESCO Director General to provide IPDC with a report that lists those UNESCO Member States that fail over the course of the next 12 months to respond to the Director-General’s condemnations of the killing of journalists. Member States are also asked to inform the Director General of actions being taken to prevent impunity as well as the progress of judicial inquiries into the murders of journalists.
The Decision concluded by proposing UNESCO convenes an inter-agency meeting of all relevant UN agencies to formulate "a comprehensive, coherent and action-orientated approach to the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity."
The full text of the Decision is available on the IPDC website here.
A Minute's Silence for Killed Journalists in Britain: A New Tradition is Born? By William Horsley
On Tuesday May 4th, everyone working in the Reuters newsroom in one of the skyscrapers in London's Canary Wharf observed a minute's silence to remember journalists killed in the pursuit of their profession.
The Reuters news agency is one of the world's biggest newsgathering organisations. Its journalists in other far-flung bureaux were asked to hold the minute's silence at the most appropriate time for their region.
Those scenes, and many like them in countries across the world, marked a small piece of history in the long global struggle for freedom of expression -- and especially in the recent efforts to raise public awareness about the rising toll of journalists' killings and the importance of journalists' work in exposing and reporting information of vital public interest.
The occasion marked World Press Freedom Day, which is celebrated internationally on May 3rd every year. Press Freedom Day spawns countless events -- vigils, rallies and debates --in countries around the world. In Britain May the third was a bank holiday -- hence the one-day delay.
The spur for the special observances was a call by the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, which was publicised only some six weeks earlier, at an international UNESCO meeting in Paris on March 26th. In her message Ms Bokova asked all who commemorate World Press Freedom Day "to observe a minute's silence to remember those whom it is too late to help; to honour the journalists who paid with their lives for our right to know."
Another global media giant, the BBC, gave special prominence to World Press Freedom Day this year through an array of radio programmes on the World Service about threats to journalists' lives and the importance of a free press to democracy.
And despite the rather short notice, the BBC World Service's Director, Peter Horrocks, took a lead by asking participants in a seminar on media freedom held on May 4th in Bush House, in central London, to stand for a minute's silence. The seminar, on the impact of the Internet revolution on global struggles for democracy, was arranged jointly by the UK National Commission for UNESCO and the BBC College of Journalism.
I had been asked to chair the event so it fell to me to open the meeting by asking those present to do something most of us had never thought to do before -- to honour other journalists who have died for their profession by standing for a moment in silence.
Peter Horrocks' message read: "Journalists are in increasing danger in all corners of the globe. The BBC depends on the bravery of our own teams and many non-BBC reporters to help inform our audiences, in the face of censorship, intimidation and violence. I would like to invite you to stand and observe a minute's silence to mark the sacrifices made by journalists in the name of freedom honour murdered journalists".
Was this the birth of a tradition? It was certainly a first -- the first time that significant numbers of journalists in Britain and around the world stopped what they were doing to contemplate the deaths of other journalists -- some of them, perhaps, colleagues or friends, most of them local journalists or media workers whose names were not widely known; but most, as careful research shows, targeted for murder because they were trying to investigate and report the truth.
A BBC memorial to fallen journalists was unveiled by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2008. The glass and steel cone on top of BBC Broadcasting House in central London stands, according to Mr Moon, "in tribute to all those who have sacrificed their lives so that the rest of us could be informed".
The new observance struck a chord in some parts, at least, of the diverse world of the global news media. Reuters has recently experienced fatalities among its own staff -- just one month earlier it had mourned the death of Hiro Muramoto, an agency cameraman shot dead in clashes between Thai troops and anti-government protestors on April 10th.
Rupert Hamer, a British journalist working for the Sunday Mirror, also died this January, together with a US marine, in a roadside bomb explosion in Helmand province.
The world's conscience was stirred by the deaths of famous journalists, including Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead at her Moscow apartment bloc in 2006, Hrant Dink, killed in an Istanbul street early the following year, and Lasantha Wickramatunga, the newspaper editor shot dead in Colombo in 2009. But too often the deaths of journalists pass without the outcry and attention they demand.
In the words of Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE's Representative on Freedom of the Media for the six years until early 2010, murders of journalists are not "ordinary crimes" -- not "crimes as usual". Because they have a chilling effect on freedom of speech in whole societies. They induce fear, and help to create a climate in which corruption and oppression thrive.
The pace and scale of the killings, violent assaults and murderous threats is growing. It doesn't seem much to ask that other journalists -- and why not also political leaders and willing members of the public -- should stop for a minute's silence on one day each year, May the third, to pay tribute and reflect on the courage of those who have died for our right to know.
Related News
- World Press Freedom Day 2010
- UNESCO’s IPDC session begins, marking the 30th anniversary of Programme
Written: 30/04/2010 , last modified: 11/05/2010
Images
-
