Azerbaijan, Baku, May 3 / Trend M.Aliyev /
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova have issued a joint message on occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, the UN Baku Office reported.
The message states that journalists should be protected.
"Over the last decade, more than 500 journalists lost their lives in the pursuit of their profession. Sixty killings were reported worldwide in 2010 alone. Every week brings more reports of journalists and bloggers suffering from intimidation and violence," the message reads.
"Our times feature great paradox. We enjoy unprecedented opportunities for expression thanks to new technologies and media. More and more people are able to share information and exchange views, within and across national borders. This is a blessing for creativity, for healthy societies, for including everyone in new forms of dialogue."
World Press Freedom Day was born twenty years ago in the vision of a group of journalists gathered in Windhoek, Namibia. The Windhoek Declaration was a call to arms to protect the fundamental principles of the freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration Human Rights. It was also a bell mringing in change across the world.
"Twenty years on, the media landscape has changed beyond recognition, but our objective remains the same: to promote freedom of expression as the foundation for human dignity and the cornerstone of democracy," the message reads.