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IFEX Communiqué Vol 20, No 23

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Missed the IFEX General Meeting and Strategy Conference in Beirut last week? Find out and see photographic evidence of what went down in the IFEX conference blog, where IFEX members, journalists, human rights activists and free expression advocates from all over the world reported from the ground about their experiences in Beirut - in at least four different languages.

International

IFEX announces 23 November as International Day to End Impunity

Impunity has always been ranked as a top priority for IFEX members. So it comes as no surprise that at the 2011 IFEX Strategy Conference in Beirut, Lebanon, last week, IFEX members announced they are joining forces to launch the first ever International Day to End Impunity on 23 November, the anniversary of the single deadliest attack on journalists in recent history: the 2009 Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines.

International / Bahrain

Bahrain testimony a highlight of "best ever" IFEX conference

Security forces prevented IFEX member Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), from attending the IFEX General Meeting and Strategy Conference in person in Beirut last week. But they couldn't prevent him from talking about recent human rights abuses in Bahrain via Skype, nor IFEX members and partners who were listening from initiating an international mission to Bahrain in the coming days. This was just one of the many highlights of the IFEX 2011 conference.

Georgia

Tear gas and rubber bullets fired at protesters, journalists

Ten thousand Georgians hit the streets on 21 May in the capital, Tbilisi, demanding that President Mikheil Saakashvili step down. But with protests showing no signs of abating, security forces dispersed hundreds of opposition demonstrators using water cannons and teargas on 26 May, beating and detaining many, report Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), ARTICLE 19 and Index on Censorship. Several journalists were brutally targeted in the attack.

Mexico

Missing journalist found dead; newspaper bombed

Mexican criminal gangs are using a variety of tactics to pressure the press into not reporting their activities, including murdering critical journalists. A journalist who disappeared in March was found buried in a grave in the state of Veracruz on 1 June, report the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International. Noel López Olguín was known for criticising local corruption in his articles.

Egypt

Military violates spirit of revolution by cracking down on critics

Journalists, bloggers and judges have been taken to court under Egypt's military regime for criticising the army's human rights violations during the uprising, its links to the Muslim Brotherhood and its lack of judicial reform, report the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) and other IFEX members. Fortunately, there is an antidote to this pattern of abuse - a coalition of rights groups and journalists are working together to put free expression rights on the national agenda.

International

States must establish greater Internet access, say free expression rapporteurs

Four international bodies that have special mandates on free expression have issued a declaration calling for international organisations and nation states to respect freedom of expression on the Internet, report ARTICLE 19 and the Center for Law and Democracy, the groups that brought them together.