MCCM
RESILIENCE
OUR MEDIA
Access to Information and Fundamental Freedoms: This Is Your Right! is the main theme of this year’s UNESCO event marking the World Press Freedom Day.
Main programme takes place on 3 and 4 May and some of the sessions are livestreamed. The events can also be followed on Twitter at #WPFD2016.
Sessions are hosted by prominent media-related organizations world-wide.
2016 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize Ceremony will be livestreamed from 18.00 to 19.00 on 3 May.
Every year, 3 May is a date which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom; to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.
Over 100 national celebrations take place each year to commemorate this Day. UNESCO leads the worldwide celebration by identifying the global thematic and organizing the main event in different parts of world every year.
The international day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 following a Recommendation adopted at the 26th Session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 1991. This in turn was a response to a call by African journalists who in 1991 produced the landmark Windhoek Declaration on media pluralism and independence.
UNESCO and the Government of Finland co-host the World Press Freedom Day’s main event and the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize Ceremony in 2016 which take place in Helsinki, Finland, from 2-4 May 2016. World Press Freedom Day 2016 is organized under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Finland Sauli Niinistö.
