[NEWS]: Freedom of Expression Crucial for Information SocietySays UNESCO Director-General

[Cedric Laurant <chlaurant@epic.org>]

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/ev.php?URL_ID=13681&URL_DO=DO_
TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201&reload=1069798262


Freedom of Expression Crucial for Information Society Says
UNESCO Director-General

24-11-2003 (UNESCO)

The Director-General of UNESCO, KoˆØchiro Matsuura, on Friday,
21 November, convened the Permanent Delegates of Member States
to UNESCO for a second briefing session on the World Summit on
the Information Society (WSIS), which will be held in Geneva,
Switzerland, from 10 to 12 December 2003 and then in Tunis,
Tunisia, in 2005.

One of the main reasons for convening the World Summit was to
find ways of harnessing the potential of knowledge and
technology to promote international development goals.

For the Director-General it is essential that the Summit also
include "ethical and intellectual considerations, which
embrace such matters as social inclusion, youth, gender,
cultural diversity, human rights and inter-cultural dialogue".
It is for this reason that UNESCO has stressed in the
preparatory debates that "the Summit needs to address, first
and foremost, the social, political, cultural and
institutional dimensions of change". That is why UNESCO has
strongly "emphasized the concept of knowledge societies as
being preferable to the information society as it goes beyond
issues of connectivity and technological development to
encompass a broader and more empowering vision that is based
on the potential of ICT to enhance human development"

Mr Matsuura noted with satisfaction that many of UNESCO's
principles, namely: equal access to education; universal
access to information and the preservation and promotion of
cultural diversity including multilingualism, are included in
the present drafts of the Declaration of Principles and the
Plan of Action of the WSIS.  " Nevertheless, the headway made
so far can be considered a success only if there is an
unambiguous assurance that freedom of expression is recognized
as the fundamental principle underlying and informing the
development of the information society", he added.

Mr Matsuura expressed his concern that the reference to
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is
still under negotiation in the present drafts. "It is my firm
position that it is important to retain in the Declaration and
the Plan of Action an explicit reference to Article 19", he
said. Rejecting the idea "that this was a North-South
confrontation", as some had said during the preparatory
debates, Mr Matsuura stated clearly, "What is at stake is the
very foundation of a democratic society and this has nothing
to do with any divide between North and South.  Freedom of
expression is not the monopoly of one geographic region, one
culture, one civilization.  It is about the raison d'ˆ�tre of
our Organization and the very foundation of our Constitution".
In conclusion, he urged the Representatives of Member States
to obtain from their governments the inclusion of "an explicit
reference to freedom of expression". "Its deletion from the
text would severely undermine internationally recognized
values and previously accepted universal principles and thus
impair the international treaty system. There can be little
argument that access to information and freedom must go
together", he said.

In the same vein, the Director-General urged delegations to
"refrain from including any language (‰Ý) that could be
interpreted as limiting the universality of the principle of
freedom of expression".  Mr Matsuura also expressed his
concern about "the continuing absence of any reference to the
role that media play in the development of knowledge
societies".  "Explicit references to the role of media,
including the role of traditional media, in the information
society in general and to their independence, pluralism and
freedom, in particular, need to be retained in the Summit
texts", he said.

-- 
Cedric