(Reuters) UN pleads for media freedom ahead of world summit

["Meryem Marzouki" <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

UN pleads for media freedom ahead of world summit

By Robert Evans
 Reuters, le 09.12.2003 à 16h10
            GENEVA, Dec 9 (Reuters) - U.N. chief Kofi Annan pleaded on
Tuesday for press freedom ahead of a world information summit being
attended by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and other leaders
accused of hobbling their national media.
            Mugabe, accused both at home and abroad of violating a wide
range of human rights including press freedom, is due to address on
Wednesday the opening session of the three-day gathering being held
under United Nations auspices.
            "It is one thing for governments to establish regulatory and
policy frameworks," the U.N. secretary-general told delegates at a
parallel event dedicated to the electronic media.
            "But when they go further down, down the slope towards
censorship and harassment, all of us -- and potentially all of our
rights -- are imperilled...The summit must reaffirm this fundamental
freedom," Annan declared.
            Officials of the world body, which called two summits, one in
Geneva and one in Tunis, to speed extending the benefits of information
technology and the Internet to poorer countries, said Annan's remarks
were not directed at any one leader.
            "But there is no doubt he has in mind Mugabe and leaders of
some other states who are sending big delegations," said one official
at the World Summit for the Information Society.
            Other leaders attending include presidents Hosni Mubarak of
Egypt and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia.

            TUNISIA TARGETED

            At a news conference on Monday, the secretary-general of the
Tunisian Bar Association and international jurist and human rights
groups accused Ben Ali of imposing total control on the media and
limiting dissidents' access to the Internet.
            On Tuesday, the summit's Human Rights Caucus, grouping more
than 40 non-governmental groups accredited to the meeting, termed
"deplorable" the rights situation in Tunisia, where the conference's
final phase is due to be held in 2005.
            Before the Geneva summit, which has not attracted top Western
leaders, diplomats say there was a long struggle between some developing
countries and European states over wording of a general declaration on
the role of the media.
            Envoys say governments exercising control over their media,
including China and Cuba, had sought language to justify their stance,
an echo of a U.N. row 30 years ago over a "new world information
order" sought by some Third World powers at the time.
            But the statement to be approved at the end of the conference
echoes the wording of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights about
press freedom, with no qualifications.
            On Tuesday, envoys also removed the final hurdle to a smooth
summit when they agreed to disagree on whether a special fund to finance
information technology in poorer states was needed and promised to carry
out a study on the issue within a year.
            In power since independence in 1980, Mugabe last year signed
harsh new security and media laws in what critics say was part of a
drive to stifle dissent and muzzle the media as Zimbabwe grapples with a
deepening political and economic crisis.
            He withdrew his country from the Commonwealth grouping of
former British colonies on Sunday when it failed to lift a year-long
suspension of Zimbabwe's membership imposed over allegations of rigging
national elections to hold onto power.