30.7.2008

Around one hundred journalists, gathered under the banner of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), will meet today to discuss issues pertaining to the freedom of the media in conflict situations. The results of the deliberations are to be presented as a common declaration to the SAARC foreign ministers.

Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa and Parliamentarian Lauxman Kiriella will grace the occasion.

National Organizer of the Sri Lanka chapter of SAFMA N.M.Ameen said that the journalists expect to develop recommendations to facilitate travel within the region of journalists in SAARC countries and obtain approval from SAARC Heads of State for a special "Liberal Visa for Journalists".

This time the conference will focus on initiating a programme to allow mass media products to be distributed among the SAARC countries.

Leading media-practitioners, from the SAARC countries are now in Colombo to attend this important conference, sources said.

Mr.Ameen said that the right to information was recognized by the international community even before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when the UN General Assembly declared in a 1946 resolution that "freedom of information is a fundamental human right and the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the UN is consecrated."

"The right to freedom of information has been guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in regional treaties, such as the Inter-American Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, European Convention on Human Rights," he said.

SAFMA notes that nearly all SAARC countries have recognized the need for freedom of information laws but their initiatives need to be reinforced.

Meanwhile the Ministry of Mass Media and Information and the Department of Government has made all the necessary arrangements for the arriving journalist to cover the SAARC event.

Accordingly two media centers have been established, one at the BMICH premises which is equipped with an adequate number of computers with high speed internet connections and other relevant facilities and the other at the Trans-Asia Hotel for registering journalists on their arrival.