World Association of Newspapers slams Western censorship

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday May 27, 2002 14:13 by MG

The World Association of Newspapers has criticised Western "democracies" for attempting to undermine free speech...

Britain, the US and other Western democracies undermine freedom of expression by imploring their media not to publicise the views of terrorists, the president of the World Association of Newspapers said today.

``The repressors of the free press have found all the inspiration and justification that they needed, even in developed democracies like the United States and Britain,'' the association president, Roger Parkinson, said at the beginning of the group's four day annual conference in Bruges, Belgium.

Mr Parkinson cited appeals by the US and British governments not to publicise messages of Osama bin Laden, head of the al-Qaida terrorist organisation. Officials of the two countries said such messages may include coded instructions
to terrorist cells.

``The breeding grounds of international terrorism are by and large those countries where the right to free expression, to the free flow of information, to open discussion, and to the free press ... are systematically outlawed and
crushed,'' he said.

But he called Western democracies ``the real battleground ... for the liberation of free information and debate, which is the best antidote against obscurantism and fanaticism and the terrorism which it provokes.''

Parkinson said the US government did a ``brisk turnaround'' after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by urging al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite TV station, not to air bin Laden statements in their entirety.

Once praised ``as a model of free expression in the Arab world,'' Parkinson said al-Jazeera ``suddenly became one that had to be muzzled as soon as it did not confine itself to relaying the American line, but gave air time to bin Laden.''

``Dwelling on the attitude and actions of the American government, when the world is full of real villains, might seem unfair, were it not for the immense power and influence that the US wields on the global stage,'' Mr Parkinson
said.

He said the US campaign set a bad example for other nations.

The Paris-based WAN represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 71 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies and nine regional and worldwide press groups.

PA