Democratic leaders, including Senegal, give historic commitment based on Declaration on Information and Democracy
PARIS, France – In a historic step in the context of the Paris Peace Forum today, 12 countries launched a political process aimed at providing democratic guarantees for news and information and freedom of opinion – a process based on the declaration issued last week by an independent commission that was created at the initiative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
In taking what could be the most significant initiative in defense of the freedom, independence, pluralism and reliability of news and information since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the 12 states responded to an appeal from the Commission on Information and Democracy chaired by RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire and Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.
The 12 leaders were from Burkina Faso, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Norway, Senegal, Switzerland and Tunisia.
For the launch of this initiative, six heads of state or government met for an hour today – from 5 to 6 pm – in the Paris Peace Forum press room in the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris.
Presenting the Declaration on Information and Democracy together with Ebadi, Deloire told them: “Reporters Without Borders initiated this Commission on Information and Democracy at a time when democracy is undergoing a deep crisis that is also a systemic crisis in the public space (…) with rumours, systematic disinformation, the undermining of quality journalism and often extreme violence against reporters. But we have a duty to examine the structural causes behind these phenomena and to take the appropriate measures (…) because open democracies are bearing the brunt of this turmoil while despotic regimes are exploiting it.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, who had received the Commission on Information and Democracy at the Elysée Palace on 11 September, the date of its first meeting in Paris, said: “We are at a major turning point today, 70 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because freedom of opinion and expression, which underpins our democracies and whose progress we had assumed to be irreversible, is in fact again threatened and questioned.”
Macron added: “I support your initiative and I am in favor of our agreeing on a set of undertakings based on the declaration presented today. I am in favour of our trying to get as many other countries as possible to join in these undertakings. And I am in favour of our creating a group of internationational experts on this subject, because there is no happiness without freedom and no freedom without courage. You decided to do your duty and I think we, as heads of state and govenrment, should do the same. I would therefore like to say here that France is fully committed to backing this and I thank my fellow heads of state and govenrment here today, who I know share this commitment.”
Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado, Tunisian President Beji Caïd Essebsi, Senegalese President Macky Sall, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg also spoke.
Source: https://www.rappler.com