GDANSK, 17.02.2018 – Promotion of pluralism, release of all imprisoned journalists and encouragement of country leaders to strongly defend and promote press freedom are just some of the recommendations adopted by the international media community in Gdansk at the conference “Free European Media”.
Around 200 delegates, including the President of the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro, Marijana Camović, discussed topics such as “Pluralism builds and maintains democracy”, “Defense of new media and independent journalism from state pressures” or “Ethical standards and self-censorship”.
At the conference spoke among others former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech
Walesa. He called upon the Europe to adopt 10 secular commandments for a new epoch in which media freedom would be guaranteed inevitably.
“This is the epoch of words. Today we cannot distance ourselves from the past. We keep looking back. We have to prove each other what the chances, what the dangers, are and when we succeed in that, the rest will go easily”, said Walesa.
He said that Europe should agree upon the foundations of this new era and that the world cannot enter it without free media.
“Without free media we cannot achieve this because different interests will always be more important than truth, honesty, and trends. There is no better example than our Solidarity union. Thanks to free press we won. Thanks to your interpretation of our ideas to society, we managed to win. Demonstrations were not enough. Free media brought victory”, concluded Walesa.
Conference on media freedom, which has become challenged in some European Union member states, such as Poland or Hungary, was organized at the European Solidarity Center in the Gdansk by the European Federation of Journalists, the Council of Europe, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, and International Press Institute.