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IFEX ANNUAL MEETING TO BE HOSTED IN SOUTH AFRICA BY MISA

The International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) will hold its Annual Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa on 19-23 April. The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) will host the meeting, which is being held in Africa for the first time. About 70 delegates, many of them African, will attend the open sessions of the meeting, which will emphasize regional topics. Topics on the agenda include the state of media freedom in Nigeria; the recent crackdown on independent journalists in Zimbabwe; and freedom of expression in times of war and crisis, which will explore the effects of conflicts across Africa and worldwide on freedom of expression. Another session will focus on developing partnerships with groups in the Middle East and North Africa, where IFEX has limited contacts.

Workshop sessions will also provide the opportunity to discuss freedom of expression and the inter American system; Southeast Asian regional networking; media ownership concentration; and media laws and legal obstacles to freedom of expression, which will take the case of Swaziland as a discussion point on lobbying in a country without a Constitution, where the government rules by decree. At the meeting, IFEX members and observers will also try to tackle the topic of measuring the effectiveness of free expression work, and will engage in a dialogue on critical resource development issues related to the long-term sustainability of freedom of expression work around the world.