2 October 2001
RSF LAUNCHES INTERNATIONAL NETWORK
Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has announced the formation of an international network of affiliated press freedom organizations, aimed at strengthening information exchange, battling impunity and focusing wider attention on countries where repressive laws and regimes infringe on journalists.
The network brings RSF together with four other IFEX members - Democratic Republic of Congo's Journalistes en danger (JED), the Glasnost Defence Foundation (Russia), Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS-Peru) and PÉRIODISTAS (Argentina) - as well as the Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication (BCDJC), Burma Media Association, Afghan Center for the Promotion of Communication (Pakistan), Institut des Mass Médias (IMI-Ukraine) and Tunisia-based Observatoire pour lá Défense de la Liberté de la press, de l'Edition et de la Création (OLPEC).
Meeting for the first time on 22 September 2001 in Paris, the ten partners drafted an agenda identifying four priority areas of action:
1) improving the exchange of information on press freedom issues in each member's country;
2) collaborating in campaigns to end impunity in the murders of journalists;
3) launching joint investigations in countries where press freedoms are compromised;
4) and jointly participating in RSF events and campaigns, such as World Press Freedom Day on 3 May and Sponsors Day on 28 November.
Meanwhile, RSF has announced the opening of two new bureaus in Montreal, Canada and Moscow, complimenting its existing bureaus in Tokyo, Bangkok, Washington, D.C., Abidjan. It also operates nine national offices in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, and a global network of roughly 100 correspondents.
For more information, visit www.rsf.org.">http://www.rsf.org">www.rsf.org.
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