ZAGREB, Feb 28 (Hina) - A three-day conference on the freedom of the media in the South East of Europe was opened in Zagreb on Wednesday. The conference is taking place as part of the Stability Pact, organised by the Council of Europe
and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The conference was opened by Croatian President Stipe Mesic. Some 12 participants, reporters, media experts and representatives of non-government organisations from 17 countries will discuss the protection of reporters in the open society and their status in the region, laws assisting or hindering the freedom of media in inter-national reconciliation and reporting on war crimes committed in the region. Mesic said at the opening "the freedom of media, promotion of peace and preventing conflicts can only be discussed by those reporters who have experienced all the shortcoming of non-free media and the transformation
ZAGREB, Feb 28 (Hina) - A three-day conference on the freedom of the
media in the South East of Europe was opened in Zagreb on Wednesday.
The conference is taking place as part of the Stability Pact,
organised by the Council of Europe and the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The conference was opened by Croatian President Stipe Mesic.
Some 12 participants, reporters, media experts and representatives
of non-government organisations from 17 countries will discuss the
protection of reporters in the open society and their status in the
region, laws assisting or hindering the freedom of media in inter-
national reconciliation and reporting on war crimes committed in
the region.
Mesic said at the opening "the freedom of media, promotion of peace
and preventing conflicts can only be discussed by those reporters
who have experienced all the shortcoming of non-free media and the
transformation of an honourable profession into the submissive
servant for the master of war, chauvinism and intolerance".
Despite differences among certain countries in Southeast Europe,
all of them tried to place the journalist profession in the function
of politics, poison the media space with inflammatory speech and
knowingly degrade the basic preconditions of journalism.
The television was especially turned into an instrument of
spreading nationalist intolerance and hatred, Mesic said, adding
we are now all facing the need to restore dignity to a compromised
profession and return to the key principles of free journalism
which should be a corrective to the government authority and a
discloser to social evils.
Addressing the participants of the conference, an OSCE
representative in charge of media freedom, Freimut Duve, assessed
media in Europe were no longer war-inciting, which is a great
achievement, but they should, he said, continue to work together
with politicians and government representatives on stimulating
pubic discussions and inter-national reconcilement.
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