Epress.am News from Armenia
Alison Bethel McKenzie, interim director of the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), the world’s oldest global press freedom organization, on Sunday delivered her State of Press Freedom Address at the Opening Ceremony of the IPI World Congress in Vienna.
In the first eight months of 2010, 52 journalists were killed around the world, IPI Interim Director Alison Bethel McKenzie told over 360 delegates, from more than 60 countries.
In her ‘State of Press Freedom’ address, Bethel McKenzie said: “The threat to peace and understanding among nations and peoples is today as great as it was upon IPI’s founding and the threat to press freedom around the world is undiminished. But let me also say resoundingly that our belief in IPI’s ability to effect change is undimmed.”
This year’s World Congress marks IPI’s 60th year defending press freedom around the globe.
Bethel McKenzie noted that the Americas was the most dangerous region from which to report in the first two-thirds of 2010, with 20 journalists killed. Mexico, with ten dead, was the most dangerous country for journalists. Honduras and Pakistan followed close behind.
IPI Chair Janne Virkkunen also spoke during the opening ceremony, and Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Brussels, presented representatives from Radio Okapi, a radio station from the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the IPI Free Media Pioneer Award.