Commemorating murdered journalist: no rights without freedom of expression
Colombo (AsiaNews) – The history of Sri Lanka has been “punctuated with human rights abuses,” said Christopher Warren, former President of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). For him, “you cannot have a society founded on human rights without the right of freedom of expression. And, you cannot have freedom of expression without a society founded on human rights. [. . .] It is easy in this environment to think things will never get better. But Tunisia and Egypt show the decade of marking time is over. And it will be up to journalists to make a difference,” added Warren, who is also the federal secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
He spoke at a ceremony marking the murder of Lasantha Wikrematunge, a Sri Lankan journalist killed two years ago. The meeting, organised by Sri Lanka’s Free Media Movement on Tuesday, focused on the “Role of Media in Post-War Democratisation”. After the screening of a documentary on Lasantha’s murder, Warren delivered the keynote address.
“These last few weeks have been exhilarating for those of us who believe in democracy, human rights and freedom of speech and the press,” he said. “First Tunisia and now Egypt have embarked on the exciting, tumultuous journey to free and democratic societies. There can be no doubt that the most difficult part of that journey is still to come and those countries [. . .] will require all the support possible from the international community of friends and supporters of democracy.”
According to Warren, what happened in Egypt will be “a beacon to the world.” Events in Tahrir Square “will force every country in the region to confront this question: If Egypt, why not us?" Because all this transcends the borders of Egypt and the Middle East because for Warren, “it marks the renewal of the global march to democracy and human rights.”
“Over the past decade, this march has stumbled due to two influences. First, the ill-named Global War on Terror came to justify restrictions on human rights in the name of security” and “encourage the democratic world to compromise with authoritarian regimes in the name of fighting terror”.
Indeed, journalists “need to be honest—many journalists do well out of authoritarian regimes, particularly in cases like Egypt where so much of the media is state-owned. They get the perks of status and public recognition. They get to hobnob with political heavyweights and get invited to drinks with the president. They are relatively well paid. Too many of our colleagues fall into the trap of comfort and compromise”. And yet, some “journalists have been fighting for—and winning—a free media,” struggling “for the right to report in the interests of the people, not of the State and the ruling elite”. Now the world is profiting from their battles.
Speaking about Sri Lanka, he noted that Lasantha’s murder was an attempt to eliminate an unwelcome form of journalism. “Lasantha’s powerful message from the grave ‘And Then They Came for Me’ indicates how well he understood that the attacks on free and independent journalism did not come in a vacuum—they came as part of a concerted push against democracy and human rights.” For Warren, “freedom of expression underpins some other rights directly—the right to practice your religion freely, the right to peaceful assembly as well as freedom of speech or, narrowest of all, freedom of the media”.
Finally, “the challenge for us as journalists, as believers in democracy and human rights, is to seize the historic turning [point] that North Africa has illuminated, [. . .] Like Sri Lanka, my country is an island. But as the global march of democracy and human rights resumes, no countries will be islands for long,” said the Australian journalist.
.png)
