By David Pitts
USIA Staff Writer

May 2, 1996

Washington -- The latest data from organizations working to promote freedom of the press demonstrate why World Press Freedom Day, celebrated each year on May 3, is so important.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 27 reporters were killed last year and 185 were imprisoned in 24 countries. Other organizations put the figures somewhat higher. Surveys by Freedom House indicate only about one-third of all nations work to ensure freedom of the press.

The main purpose of World Press Freedom Day, according to these organizations, is to draw public attention to the importance of the free flow of information and the kind of democratic political institutions that can help nurture it.

This year, Freedom Forum in Arlington, Virginia, was one of many organizations around the world which drew attention to the fact that journalism can be a dangerous profession, even in democratic countries.

In a ceremony there May 2, Graham Turley, husband of journalist Veronica Guerin, who was murdered in Dublin, Ireland, last June while investigating organized crime there, paid tribute to his wife as well as all the reporters who lost their lives in other countries last year.

The Freedom Forum event took place at the Journalists' Memorial that commemorates over 900 reporters and other news professionals who have been killed while pursuing their craft. It was dedicated last May. Speaking in front of the memorial's glass panels, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton called the slain journalists "democracy's heroes," because "democracy depends on the free flow of information." This year marks the second commemoration of World Press Freedom Day at the memorial site.

World Press Freedom Day also is an important event for the World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC), a group of over 30 national and international news media outlets, located in Reston, Virginia.

Among its many activities, WPFC works to gain adherence from governments to its 10-point Charter For A Free Press. The principles of the charter, which deals specifically with media-state relations, are:

-- No censorship.

-- No ban on independent media.

-- No discrimination by government against media companies.

-- No restrictions on access to newsprint, printing facilities, and distribution systems.

-- No barriers placed by governmental communications authorities that would inhibit news distribution.

-- No restrictions on editorial independence for government media.

-- No prohibitions on in-country news organizations obtaining news from external sources.

-- No constraints on foreign journalists entering countries to cover the news.

-- No special licensing procedures designed to restrict who can become journalists.

-- No special provisions that would deny journalists the full protection of the law.

WPFC's Charter For A Free Press was approved by journalists from 34 countries from five continents at a WPFC conference in London held in 1987. The conference was co-sponsored by many other leading international free press groups.

The Charter also has been endorsed by the Secretary-General of the U.N. and the Director-General of UNESCO, who said that the Charter "carries forward the guidance from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights that guarantees freedom of the press." The Universal Declaration stipulates: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression."

World Press Freedom Day was initiated by UNESCO in commemoration of the Windhoek Declaration, which was adopted May 3, 1991. The declaration was written in South Africa by African publishers, editors, and journalists to assert the crucial role of a free press in Africa and throughout the world. It called on governments everywhere to guarantee freedom of the press.

UNESCO spokesperson Andrew Weycoff explained that the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution proclaiming World Press Freedom Day in 1993. It was first celebrated in 1994. Many newspapers marked the event by printing the Charter For A Free Press in full.