World Press Freedom Day 2012

In observance of World Press Freedom Day this year, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has created a special online page calling attention and action to three major free expression issues corrosive of press freedom and freedom of information in the Philippines:

• the killing of journalists due to the prevailing culture of impunity, or exemption from punishment of the killers, in the Philippines;
• the use of criminal libel to stifle dissent; and
• the failure to pass a freedom of information law.

The protection of freedom of expression and the encouragement and exercise of access to information are part of the upcoming United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Philippines’ compliance with its international human rights obligations. CMFR has raised these issues as crucial to the state of free expression with ARTICLE 19, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, Media Defence Southeast Asia, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Center for International Law.

In collaboration with the Malaysia-based Southeast Asian Centre for e-Media (SEACeM), CMFR has also called for action on these three issues in the TakeActionNow website.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) marks World Press Freedom Day on May 3 every year to recall not only “the fundamental principles of press freedom.” It is also an occasion “to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence, and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.” (More information is available here)

The UPR is a UN Human Rights Council review of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member-States (including the Philippines) once every four years. (More information about UPR is available at here)