- World Press Freedom Day 2019 is being celebrated across the world on May 3. The main celebration of World Press Freedom Day 2019 is being taking place in Addis Ababa, from 1 to 3 May 2019. The event provides a platform for multiple actors to exchange on current issues, threats and achievements concerning freedom of the press.
- Theme: Theme for 2019 is “Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation”.
- Governments across the world are increasingly clamping down on press freedom by enacting new laws, according to a global network of journalists. Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) said in its latest report that as many as 55 journalists have been killed since May last year.
- IPI Executive Director Barbara Trionfi, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2019, said Press freedom globally is under intense and growing pressure, as illiberal-minded governments seek to shut down critical voices and, in many cases, deliberately erode the credibility of independent media.
Background
- Every year, 3 May is a date which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom, to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.
- World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 following a Recommendation adopted at the twenty-sixth session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 1991. This in turn was a response to a call by African journalists who in 1991 produced the landmark Windhoek Declaration on media pluralism and independence.
