DATE AND TIME: Tue, 2 May 2023 18:30 – 20:00 BST
LOCATION: Room 4A, House of Lords Parliament Square, London, SW1A 0AA
Speakers:
- Karuna Nundy, Member, High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom; advocate at Supreme Court of India (via video)
- Amberin Zaman, UK-based Turkish journalist, Al-Monitor international correspondent; Coalition of Women Journalists press freedom Hero
- Maria Ordzhonikidze, Director, Justice for Journalists Foundation
- Kingsley Abbott, Director, Institute of Commonwealth Studies; former Leading Expert on International Criminal Justice for the International Commission of Jurists
Moderator, William Horsley, International Director, Centre for Freedom of the Media; UK Chairman, Association of European Journalists
Host: Lord Black of Brentwood, Deputy Chairman of the Telegraph Media Group
The past decade has seen ambitious initiatives put forward by the UN, the Council of Europe, the legal community, human rights groups and journalists, all aimed at reversing the slide towards the forceful suppression of free speech by state authorities and other powerful forces. These mobilisations all stem from the conviction that freedom of expression and media freedom together give effect to a wide range of other fundamental rights and freedoms that are now under extraordinary pressure. Headlines from all over the world tell how journalists increasingly face being publicly vilified, criminalised, intimidated or killed to deter them from exposing corruption, crime and serous abuses of power.
As leaders assemble at the UN in New York and UNESCO in Paris to mark the 30th anniversary of the first World Press Freedom Day and give more teeth to the 2012 UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists, our speakers will present bold but practical pathways to reclaim the information sphere for unhindered journalism, open public debate and free and fair elections.
The meeting is jointly organised by the Westminster United Nations Association and the Centre for Freedom in the Media with support from the Association of European Journalists and Commonwealth Journalists Association.