Schedule joint activities to promote press freedom
Miami (December 27, 2010)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has joined together with press freedom organizations to promote 2011 as “Freedom of Expression Year” and organize activities that will raise public awareness of the right to information.
IAPA President Gonzalo Marroquín said that, “During 2011 we will be putting special emphasis on making the public aware of the fact that when the press and free speech are restricted, the value of the right to knowledge is undermined, thus weakening an individual and social human right essential for the survival and success of democracy.”
Marroquín, editor of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Prensa Libre, added that the emphasis in 2011 “will be focused on highlighting what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Human Rights Convention and the Declaration of Chapultepec teach us about freedom of the press and of expression.” He went on to express gratitude to like-minded organizations that have joined the IAPA initiative.
In recent weeks the IAPA has received the support of the Association of News Entities of Argentina (ADEPA), the National Newspapers Association (ANP) of Bolivia, the National Newspaper Association (ANP) of Chile, the National Newspaper Association (ANJ) of Brazil, the Association of Colombian Newspapers (ANDIARIOS), the Mexican Editors and Publishers Association (AMEX), the Peruvian Press Council (CPP) and the Venezuelan Press Bloc (BPV).
In its schedule of 2011 activities the IAPA plans two hemispheric conferences, to be held in San Diego, California, and Puebla, Mexico, in addition to its two biannual membership meetings, in San Diego and in Lima, Peru. In addition to legal, judicial and academic forums, training seminars for news media staffs and the dispatch of international delegations to a number of countries, the IAPA will celebrate World Press Freedom Day on May 3 in Santiago, Chile, in conjunction with that country’s National Newspaper Association.
Other international groups have also joined the IAPA initiative, among them the International Association of Broadcasting (IAB), World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, Committee to Protect Journalists, World Press Freedom Committee, International Federation of the Periodical Press and International Press Institute.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
