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.
Also I found this at the unesco site:
“The rights to life and to liberty and integrity and security of person and also to freedom of expression are fundamental human rights that are recognized and guaranteed by international conventions and instruments.” (UNESCO Resolution, General Conference 1997)
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 defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger. The Prize is named in honour of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador, in Bogotá, on 17 December 1986. Cano's writings had offended Colombia's powerful drug barons.
Unfortunately, today in my country we are facing the possibility of an important televison channel to be closed. This channel was denied the possibility of continuing working by the President of the Republic himself. His argument to do this, it is just that this channel is "golpista" and it's always denouncing what's wrong in his goverment. This is really serious. If RCTV is closed, Press Freedom will be diminished in our country. I just would like to ask our president for his reconsidering of this decision of closing RCTV and support ofthe strengtening of Free Press in Venezuela. It's important to remember that RCTV has been with us ,Venezuelans, for 53 years and they have been the same channel in every goverment. You can watch RCTV on line here: http://tv.venezuela.com/rctv.htmlHappy Day to journalist and free thinkers and
3 comments:
Such an interesting topic, Doris!
Your last blog has attracted my attention 'cause I took part in Model UN in 2005 and I researched about similar topics. I'm interesting in international issues and human rights but I wasn't aware about the current situation of RCTV. Hope Venezuelan president reconsider his decision because press freedom is very important for democacry and society.
Regards,
Eugenia from Argentina.
Thanks so much for your concern. Yes, it's very sad that in Venezuela we are getting afraid of speaking our minds without having to pay the consequences. I heard this expression in a movie "People shouldn't be scared of their goverment. Goverments should be scared of people". Right now, writing this post I can't stop feeling a little afraid of telling the world about what we are living. But we must defend our right to speak up when we think there's something that's not right.
Dear Doris, I think that Venezuela is living hard times. Free press is the only institution that can control governments and defend the citizens' rights. I hope the situation in your country will change soon.
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