Journalists’ renewed call for Freedom of Information Act to be implemented ‘as soon as possible’

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is marking this year's World Press Freedom Day by focusing on the legacy of the terrorist attacks on 11 September, 2001, in New York and Washington a decade ago.

“The last ten years have seen an alarming erosion of press freedom as governments adopted a hard line in the fight against terror," insisted IFJ President Jim Boumelha.

“There is no doubt that journalists have been among the prominent victims of a widespread assault on the democratic rights of all citizens and this has to change,” he added.

The IFJ insisted that the laws introduced in the wake of the attacks of 11 September, 2001, in America, such as restrictions of movement and the right to investigate public authorities and to report and to publish freely “have reduced the rights of journalists”.

The Federation called for “a fresh debate on the new information landscape and how governments are responding to the challenge of groups, such Wikileaks, in exposing government secrets and the impact this has on journalism”.

The IFJ warned there was a need “to review the security legislation and its impact on the work of journalists and has called on its affiliates to promote the campaign in their annual activities and events this year”.

The IFJ plans to launch a major campaign – “Journalism in the Shadow of Terror” – to consider the impact of those terrible events and to call for a reversal of the tide of legal and official intimidation of journalism and attacks on civil liberties that have followed the events of 2001.

In Africa, the focus was on the campaign to secure the release of detained journalists in Eritrea and to lobby the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in Banjul with a view to adopting a Declaration on the safety of journalists.

In the Asia Pacific region, activities featured mainly the issue of press freedom in South East Asia and the continuing fight against impunity in the Philippines.

In Latin America, Chile was the centre of the regional celebrations of World Press Freedom Day, with important events taking place in Santiago, including an international conference on media and democracy as well the publication of a report on media concentration.

Events in Europe highlighted the impact of anti-terror legislation on journalists’ work, particularly photojournalists who are denied the right to take photographs in some popular public places in London.

The same theme was debated in Italy where a public debate on journalism under the shadow of terror as well as on the uprising in North Africa was held and in the Netherlands during a Press Freedom Lecture entitled Openness v. Security in Amsterdam.