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Write On Follow-up May 3, 2007
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World Association of Newspapers Urges Governments to Balance Stricter Security Without Infringing Upon The Freedom of The Press

The World Association of Newspapers says it fears that as governments enhance security precautions many of their measures are being used to restrict the free flow of information. Seeking to find a balance between the two, WAN, for World Press Freedom Day, issued the following manifesto calling on governments and their agencies:

- To guarantee public availability of officially held data, information and archives accessible under Freedom of Information laws or related legal provisions. Stricter security classifications may be called for when it comes to sensitive military and intelligence issues, but there must also be strict reviews to guard against unjustified attempts to limit public scrutiny, particularly that of political decisions.

- To guarantee the rightof journalists to protect their confidential sources of information, as a necessary requirement for a free press. The existing legal protections available in both national and international laws must be upheld.

- To make electronic surveillance of communications dependent on judicial authorization, control or review, to protect the imperative independence and confidentiality of newsgathering. Governments must ensure that technological advances do not undermine the legal protections of journalists and hinder the ability of the press to play its “watchdog” role.

- To ensure that searches of journalists’ offices or homes are conducted uniquely by warrant issued only when there is proven ground for suspicion of lawbreaking, so as to uphold the right to protect confidential journalistic sources and thus press freedom. The power to seize documents must also be based on a lawful warrant and on firmly grounded suspicions.

- To guarantee journalists the right to cover all sides of a story, including that of alleged terrorists, and to restrain from any hasty and unjustified criminalization of speech. Broad and vague definitions of speech offences can evidently be used to restrict free speech, including the analysis of extreme discourse, stands or actions, and governments should not use criminal law to stifle critical reporting and opinion.

- To abstain from prosecuting journalists who published classified information. In free societies, courts have held that it is the job of governments, not journalists, to protect official secrets, subject to the common sense decisions that editors normally make against, for instance, endangering lives.

- To abstain from resorting to “black” propaganda – in other words, peacetime use of government services to plant false or misleading articles masquerading as normal journalism as well as the false use of journalistic identities by intelligence agents. Not only do such disinformation practices misinform the public, they also undermine the credibility of real journalism.

WAN, represents some 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 76 national newspaper associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 10 regional and world-wide press groups. – May 3, 2007


Keywords:journalists killed,press freedom

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