31 March 2004
East European Media Lawyers Team Up to Defend Free Expression
30 March 2004
Media lawyers from across Eastern Europe are teaming up to fight restrictive press laws, promote freedom of expression and train young professionals in the region, reports the Open Society Justice Initiative.
The International Media Lawyers' Association (IMLA) has been established to share legal knowledge and best practices among members, train a new generation of media lawyers and lobby for media law reform in the region.
The founding of the new organisation comes as journalists increasingly face legal harassment and censorship for reporting critically on government corruption, says the Justice Initiative. Despite a decade of media reform, bad laws and practices continue to undermine free expression. To defend journalists, media lawyers need to be familiar with international standards on free expression, argues the Justice Initiative.
The Justice Initiative collaborated with the Stanhope Center on Communications Law and Policy, the Media Center in Belgrade and the Georgia-based Liberty Institute to organise a series of meetings in February and March 2004, which brought together the IMLA's founding members. They included media lawyers and free-expression advocates from Southeastern Europe, the Southern Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom.
For more information on the IMLA, visit: http://www.stanhopecentre.org/research/mla.shtml
Visit these links:
- Justice Initiative: http://www.justiceinitiative.org
- Media Center: http://www.mediacenter.org.yu
- Liberty Institute: http://www.liberty.ge
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