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AMARC commemorates World Press Freedom Day

AMARC commemorates World Press Freedom Day

Montréal, 3 May, 2005. The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), together with media and freedom of expression organisations worldwide today commemorates World Press Freedom Day. In doing so, AMARC is pleased to announce the establishment of an international media observatory to monitor community media development.

AMARC notes that, in the last three years, community media have gained recognition in the human rights systems of the Americas, Africa and Europe as having a unique contribution to make to the realisation of the right to freedom of expression.

Yet too many governments remain reluctant to open their airwaves to civil society voices. State monopolies of the media remain a persistent obstacle in a number of countries notably in the Middle East and Asia, while in other parts of the world, including Latin America, private media concentrations have also become a barrier to media pluralism.

AMARC calls on governments worldwide to open their airwaves to voices of civil society through the establishment of independent community media as a platform for democratic participation and the promotion of human rights and sustainable development.

AMARC welcomes progress on community radio that has been achieved in the last year in countries as diverse as Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, United Kingdom, Senegal, Indonesia and South Korea while calling on other, more reticent governments, to follow suit.

AMARC equally applauds the struggle of community broadcasters who have defended themselves in the face of threats to their right to the freedom of expression notably in Brazil, Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Togo and Nepal.

AMARC urges countries which have not yet done so to adopt legal and regulatory standards that recognise community media as a distinct sector of broadcasting with fair and equitable access to radio spectrum and to the economic resources needed to sustain their operations.

AMARC announces today the establishment of an international on-line media observatory to monitor and report on the progress of governments worldwide in opening up their airwaves to community media and civil society access to broadcasting. To visit the observatory, please go to http://www.obsmedia.amarc.org (information available in English and Spanish). To see the information only in Spanish, please go to http://www.alc.amarc.org/legislaciones/

Posted by Evelin at May 5, 2005 02:38 AM
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