Miami (February 18, 2014)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today joined other international organizations defending press freedom in calling on the British government “to take immediate action to protect freedom of the press,” in response to a Royal Charter that imposes a regime of censorship, disguised as a system of self-regulation.
The letter, sent earlier today to United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron, was signed by IAPA President Elizabeth Ballantine and representatives from the Committee to Protect Journalists, International Broadcasting Association, International Press Institutes, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, World Press Freedom Committee, and International Federation of the Periodical Press, organizations belonging to the Press Organizations Coordinating Committee.
In the letter the British government is asked “to distance itself from the Parliamentary investigation of The Guardian” and it urges Parliament to repeal anti-press regulations, among them “any other regulation that gives legal force to the Royal Charter.”
This joint action came about following a mission headed by the above mentioned organizations to the United Kingdom January 15-16. The objective was to investigate complaints of governmental pressure on The Guardian and its editor, Alan Rusbridger, since May last year after the newspaper decided to publish articles on the leaks that Edward Snowden made on spying activities of the United States’ National Security Agency.
Representing the IAPA were Claudio Paolillo, chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, and Edward Seaton, former president of the organization.
In the letter (see letter in English at http://cpj.org/blog/Coordinating_Committee_Letter.pdf and in Spanish at http://cpj.org/es/uk_letter_spanish-20140218.pdf) the major complaint of the organizations is that the mechanism, known as voluntary self-regulation, becomes futile, when forcefully applied by the Royal Charter. It will serve to censure, with the aggravating circumstance that it can potentially be imitated by autocratic governments.
In this regard, the letter served as example to Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, who justified his country’s new Communication Law, or “gag law,” referencing the obligatory rules that they want to impose in the United Kingdom.
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.
