Feature

That was one of the key messages from the Representative, Miklos Haraszti of Hungary, during an experts' meeting in Vienna on 29 February to celebrate the Office's first decade of existence.

The event, held under the auspices of the Finnish OSCE Chairmanship, was designed to look at "Present and future challenges to media freedom and free expression in the OSCE region".

Over 80 participants attended, including representatives from governments, civil society, parliaments, the media, academia and students from the OSCE area.

"I feel that the OSCE as a whole, including its participating States, should be congratulated for establishing and maintaining this unique Institution, the only intergovernmental media freedom watchdog in the world," Haraszti told the gathering.

But despite the numerous congratulations that the Office had received on its anniversary, Haraszti cautioned against complacency, drawing attention to a very worrying trend: the questioning of the universality of the OSCE commitments.

Universal democratic values

"Ten years ago, the establishment of this Office marked a moment when all participating States committed themselves to the universal values of democracy, including the protection of free expression and media pluralism. Today, just as in the days before the formation of the OSCE, different interpretations of democracy are being cultivated again, also with regard to speech rights," he said.

The anniversary event featured an impressive array of speakers who outlined the challenges that journalists face every day. All geographical areas and major issues were scrutinized, including cases where states tolerate harassment or where journalists are murdered; where pluralism is considerably restricted by undue government influence; where journalists' rights to investigate their governments are denied; and where offending or critical views are often punished, almost mechanically, as 'extremism' or 'hate speech'.

The international tensions since 2006 over secular depictions of religious figures, as well as the wave of criminalization of certain interpretations of history, were given special attention by several speakers, including Le Monde cartoonist Plantu and Gazeta Wyborcza foreign correspondent Konstanty Gebert. The Chair of Writers in Prison Committee, Karin Clark, spoke about free expression restrictions faced by writers OSCE-wide.

The Secretary of State of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pertti Torstila; the OSCE Secretary General, Marc Perrin de Brichambaut; and the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Christian Strohal, addressed the gathering in the opening session. Freimut Duve, the first OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, who held the post from 1998 to 2004, greeted the meeting by telephone.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, joined the appeal by the Office of the RFOM to participating States to decriminalize the professional mistakes of journalists - such as defamation and insult - and to allow these offences to be treated exclusively in civil courts.

Gus Hosein, Senior Fellow at Privacy International, denounced recent policies on border, travel and communications surveillance, both in the US and the EU: "Not only do they lack accountability and escape scrutiny, but also the prevailing mood across Europe to call for 'tougher borders' without quite knowing what that means is already having detrimental implications on privacy rights." Reino Paasilinna, Finnish Member of European Parliament, also explored global trends towards increased surveillance, especially on the Internet.

Worrying trends in the CIS

Firdevs Robinson, Editor at the BBC World Service, described the current media and press freedom situation in Turkey and the three South Caucasus countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, particularly in the light of recent or forthcoming elections in these countries. "There is nothing like the heat of an election to test both the professionalism of journalists and the commitment to democracy of governments," she said.

Other speakers depicted a distressing picture of press freedom in CIS states. Far from thriving, independent media outlets in most CIS nations are struggling just to keep operating. Oleg Panfilov, Director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said that in his view: "The media environment in most of the post-Soviet countries - including Azerbaijan, Belarus, Central Asia, and Russia - can be described as 'appalling'."

Aleksey Simonov, President of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, added: "In Russia, we can compare the media situation with a zoo where State-owned or ruled outlets are in cages while independent ones are in a natural reserve. None of them are really free."

In conclusion, Haraszti assured the participants that: "Governments, civil societies, and journalists in the OSCE participating States can count on the dedication of this Office to keep the OSCE media freedom commitments alive, and advocate for compliance."

A publication featuring the presentations and discussions held at the anniversary event will be produced later this year.