RightsCon Tunis 2019

Media freedom is in decline worldwide. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the number of journalists jailed for their work is at the highest level since the 1990s. Digital technologies have brought significant social, political, and economic changes. Given the democratic value of the global information ecosystem as a shared public good, there is a renewed need to safeguard its integrity. Given these concurrent problems, efforts to advance media freedom must seek to protect both the media’s right to speak and the public’s need to access information of public interest and value, in order to exercise their democratic rights.

Canada will be co-hosting with the UK the upcoming Global Conference for Media Freedom in London on July 10 to 11, 2019. This session, moderated by Canada’s Ambassador to Tunisia, Carol McQueen, will seek the views of international civil society organizations on how the Government of Canada should shape the agenda for the upcoming conference and what concrete outcomes we should be working towards to ensure the relevance and success of the event as a meaningful step in advancing progress to protect media freedom.

The conference in July will explore opportunities to advance the safety of journalists and media professionals, the integrity of the evolving global information ecosystem, and media freedom as an essential element of the development agenda. We seek to strengthen the rules-based international order, human rights, and democratic resilience by enhancing cooperation in addressing threats to media freedom, highlighting the achievements of countries taking steps to protect media freedom, and addressing disinformation while strengthening the right to freedom of opinion and expression.