[Community Media Association] AMARC commemorates World Press Freedom Day

[Mickey Conn]

 From http://www.obsmedia.amarc.org/site.php?lang=EN

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AMARC commemorates World Press Freedom Day

Montréal, 3 May, 2005. The World Association of Community Radio 
Broadcasters (AMARC), together with media and freedom of expression 
organisations worldwide today commemorates World Press Freedom Day. In 
doing so, AMARC is pleased to announce the establishment of an 
international media observatory to monitor community media development.

AMARC notes that, in the last three years, community media have gained 
recognition in the human rights systems of the Americas, Africa and 
Europe as having a unique contribution to make to the realisation of the 
right to freedom of expression.

Yet too many governments remain reluctant to open their airwaves to 
civil society voices. State monopolies of the media remain a persistent 
obstacle in a number of countries notably in the Middle East and Asia, 
while in other parts of the world, including Latin America, private 
media concentrations have also become a barrier to media pluralism.

AMARC calls on governments worldwide to open their airwaves to voices of 
civil society through the establishment of independent community media 
as a platform for democratic participation and the promotion of human 
rights and sustainable development.

AMARC welcomes progress on community radio that has been achieved in the 
last year in countries as diverse as Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, United 
Kingdom, Senegal, Indonesia and South Korea while calling on other, more 
reticent governments, to follow suit.

AMARC equally applauds the struggle of community broadcasters who have 
defended themselves in the face of threats to their right to the freedom 
of expression notably in Brazil, Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of 
Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Togo and Nepal.

AMARC urges countries which have not yet done so to adopt legal and 
regulatory standards that recognise community media as a distinct sector 
of broadcasting with fair and equitable access to radio spectrum and to 
the economic resources needed to sustain their operations.

AMARC announces today the establishment of an international on-line 
media observatory to monitor and report on the progress of governments 
worldwide in opening up their airwaves to community media and civil 
society access to broadcasting. To visit the observatory, please go to 
http://www.obsmedia.amarc.org (information available in English and 
Spanish). To see the information only in Spanish, please go to 
http://www.alc.amarc.org/legislaciones/

-- 
Mickey Conn
Admin Assistant

Community Media Association
www.commedia.org.uk