Report on

Building Union Capacity for Human Rights and Conflict reporting in South Asia

Organised by International Federation of Journalist (IFJ)

1-3 September 2006, Kathmandu, Nepal

All the South Asian countries-Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are in various phases of transition. In some countries democratic framework are in the making and conflicts are emotionally charged with ideological, religious, cultural and gender sensitivity, competing identity projection, minority rights, sub-national outbursts and sharing of resources and political power. Many of those conflicts spring from a condition of democratic deficit arising from the selfish interest of certain elites.
The daily struggle of South Asian peoples for human rights-- freedom, entitlements and social opportunities- thus remains unfinished. Very often, containment of popular movements against structural injustice has taken a violent turn. Greed, grievances and distorted mode of communication have inflamed various types of conflicts in South Asia and triggered the violation of human rights.

Journalists involved in human rights and conflict reporting face harassments, defamation, attacks, intimidation, seducement and self-censorship. Journalists who report the violation of human rights and conflict also face perils on their personal life and professional freedoms. Many journalists have suffered death, detention, arrest and coercion while others have faced eviction. Persistence of structural injustice has caused the growth of various types of conflict, punished the weakest members of the society, violated their human rights and undermined their pursuit in liberty, progress and identity.

The eviction of journalists from the field means putting the condition of people out of sight and stifling the ability of media to bring information to a larger public sphere for legitimate political action. Any attempt by journalists to project the visibility of conflict victim is, therefore, pregnant with the danger. When they shed a negative light on the gap between justice and power maintained by the governments, problem begins and security authorities defend the reasons of state and harsh laws to penalize the journalists with impunity thus undermining their sovereign pursuit.

When democracy becomes majority rule than popular sovereignty conflict with self-asserting minorities becomes inevitable. Conflicts continue to destroy the public and private world of people, rendering them terrified and reducing them to gloomy silence. Each conflict contains its own competing systems of drivers, actors and stakeholders and puts them on a hot light of media publicity.

In this context IFJ and FES organized a third biennial follow-up meeting of the South Asia Media Solidarity Network (SAMSN) to identity the various challenges to journalists, seek remedial measures and push the boundaries of media through multi-track solidarity.

Objectives

The basic objectives of the workshops were:

a) Build the capacity of South Asian journalists on human rights and conflict reporting,
b) Strengthen the solidarity of South Asia Media Solidarity Network,
c) Enable them to take up the issue of safety and press freedom in South Asia,
d) Strengthening the trade unions in the media, promote gender equity and foster a culture of
diversity and pluralist,
e) Evaluate the previous tasks and formulate future plan of action.

Participants and resource persons: There were altogether 27 participants from Afghanistan (2), Bhutan (1), Bangladesh (2), India (6), Pakistan (2) Sri Lanka (6) and Nepal (8) including 9 women. Resource persons were Christopher Warren, President IFJ, Jacqui Park, Laxmi Murthy, Sunanda Deshpriya, Bharat Bhusan, editor The Telegraph (India) and Shayam Shrestha, editor, The Mulyankan.

Contents and Methodology: The contents of the workshop involved solidarity in the newsroom, press freedom, democracy and the role of journalists, conflict and human rights, presentation of country reports, network and campaign for press freedom, safety of journalists and democratic media, promoting gender equity, tolerance and diversity, strengthening trade union and solidarity in South Asia, anti-terrorism and public security legislation, preparing for freedom alerts and strategies for future work. The methodology of the workshop was highly participatory. But, it also combined lecture presentation, group works, interaction and common agenda setting program.

Evaluation: Participants found the workshop highly useful for strengthening the work of their unions, strengthen solidarity in conflict-affected areas, raise collective voice for the safety and protection of journalists and make the future work gender and conflict-sensitive. IFJ agreed to coordinate the activities of unions at all levels-- national, regional and global, created information sharing system with other organizations and committed to expand the training on protecting human rights of journalists. It has also organized several media missions in various countries of the region in transition, such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh and expressed solidarity to journalists and their unions. It also brought out a South Asia media report highlighting the role of its affiliates in their struggle for democracy and human rights. The participants prepared an action plan focusing on the need to create a fair workplace, human rights protection, diversity reporting, conflict-sensitivity and editorial independence, support to the journalists under pressure, express solidarity and allocation of fund to achieve these aims.

The Kantipur Television organized a short interview of IFJ President Christopher Warren. The same day media mission of 8 various international organizations have been organized under his leadership to talk to the Prime Minister, CPN (Maoist) leaders and leaders of various political parties to lobby for better working conditions for journalists and protection of their rights including the sincere promotion of peace process.