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 **  *****  *****    ***           COMMUNIQUE # 5 - 2
 **  **     **      ** **          15 January 1996
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International Freedom of Expression eXchange Clearing House
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SEMINAR PROMOTES INDEPENDENT AND PLURALISTIC ARAB MEDIA

Freedom of expression was the focus of the Seminar on Promoting
Independent and Pluralistic Arab Media in Yemen on 7-11 January.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) and the UN organized the seminar, which
took place in Sana'a. Around 120 Arab journalists and 20
observers from international media organizations and freedom of
expression non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attended the
seminar. Two Tunisian journalists, Siham Bensedrine and Kamel
Labidi, were prevented by Tunisian authorities from attending the
otherwise successful seminar. At the closing session,
participants adopted the Declaration of Sana'a, which deplores
that "in the Arab world, journalists, publishers and other media
practitioners continue to be victims of harassment, physical
assaults, threats, arrests, detention, torture, abduction, exile
and murder, as well as being subject to economic and political
pressures including dismissal, censorship, curbs on travel,
passport withdrawals or visa denials."

UNESCO said, "Participants also deplored the arrest and detention
of journalists as a result of their professional activities, in
violation of human rights, and demanded the immediate and
unconditional release of journalists imprisoned by Arab state
governments." They declared that "Arab states should provide and
reinforce, wherever they exist, constitutional and legal
guarantees of freedom of expression and of press freedom and
should abolish exceptional laws and measures limiting the freedom
of the press." The participants called on media organizations and
press freedom NGOs to help set up national and regional networks
to monitor and combat violations against freedom of expression.

In an article on the Arab press to mark the occasion of the
Sana'a conference in the January issue of "La Lettre", the
bulletin of Reporters sans frontieres (RSF), Djallal Malti
writes, "The Arab world suffers from the absence of press freedom
more than any other region of the world." RSF notes the
inordinate number of journalists who have died in Arab countries,
not least in Algeria. Other countries in which journalists have
died in the last two years in the region include Egypt, Tunisia,
Palestine and Iraq.

From: ifex@web.apc.org