Media Center

Press Release

OAS COUNTRIES RENEW COMMITMENT TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) today renewed their commitment to guarantee their citizens the right to freedom of thought and expression. During a special two-day session convened in Washington by OAS General Assembly mandate, member state representatives, jurists and other experts stressed the importance of freedom of expression to democracy.

The Chairman of the OAS Permanent Council’s Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs, Ambassador of Brazil Osmar Chohfi, said the session offers “another opportunity to promote respect for the right to free expression and to guarantee citizens those rights.” He said the right to freedom of thought and expression is “vital to the very existence and effective exercise of democracy,” as set forth in the American Convention on Human Rights and other pertinent inter-American instruments.

“When people lose their ability to freely express themselves, they also lose the ability to be informed, to know, to communicate, to interact socially and to take positions,” said the President of the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Evelio Fernández. He stressed that “freedom of expression has an unquestionably central role in the strengthening of democracy.” Fernández explained further that “only with free individuals can there be a just society, one in which all voices are given an opportunity. A society with its right to free expression limited is a society without strength and without creativity.”

“If freedom of expression is restricted,” said the IACHR President, “so too are the prospects for citizens to provide oversight, and the path is open for abuses by public officials and even civil society.” He added that one of the major contributions of the Human Rights Commission has been the drafting of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, adopted in 2000. He also noted that nine member states that had revoked so-called “contempt” laws, and said that several countries – including Ecuador, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago – had passed new access-to-information laws.

Judge Manuel Ventura of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, meanwhile, said the right to freedom of expression and thought is indispensable “for political parties, labor unions, scientific and cultural organizations and in general those seeking to influence society, to fully develop their potential.” Ventura warned, however, that despite gains against restrictions on free expression, there has been an increase in some places in the incidence of public officials criminally prosecuting journalists.

Participants are also considering such issues as public demonstrations as a form of exercising freedom of expression, as well as the prohibition of propaganda to encourage war or discrimination. Among others participating in the meeting, which concludes tomorrow, are Ignacio Alvarez, IACHR Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression; Claudio Grossman, Dean of American University’s Washington College of Law; Viviana Krsticevic, Executive Director of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL); and Paulo Sotero, Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute.

Reference: E-230/06