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Miklos Haraszti calls on governments to protect press freedom

02 May 2008 13:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Tamara Grigorieva-APA. Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, called on the OSCE participating States on Friday to protect press freedom by curbing violence against journalists and abolishing undue restrictions on free speech and reporting. "In the past year, we saw deterioration in two crucial dimensions of press freedom - the physical security of journalists, and the legal protections of critical speech," Haraszti said ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. Haraszti said he was alarmed that violence targeting journalists in several OSCE countries was rising, and that such actions were conducted with impunity which he said had resulted in "censorship by violence". He called on governments to get tougher on those who intimidate journalists. "In revenge for critical coverage, or because of attempts to prevent it, journalists have suffered physical violence ranging from beatings to murders in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia and Macedonia," he said. "Violence against journalists is not ’crime as usual’ because it is meant to undermine a basic institution of democracy - the free pressâ€, said Haraszti.