While celebrating the first ten years of the International Press Institute’s (IPI’s) headquarters in Vienna, Austria on 20-24 November, speakers highlighted the need for States around the world to uphold fundamental human rights in the fight against terrorism.

Speaking at the Thursday luncheon in the Hotel Intercontinental, on 21 November, Freimut Duve, the Free Media Representative for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) said States should not use terrorism as an excuse to impose restrictive measures that limit press freedom. He also stated that governments should not punish journalists for their articles.

In the evening, delegates at the Palais Pallavicini listened to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, speak on the importance of human rights at a time when these rights appear to have been set aside to address terrorism around the world.

On the subject of human rights and its relationship with terrorism, Vieira de Mello said, “While we all recognise the duty of States to protect themselves and their people, if necessary through exceptional measures, in some cases, such measures can result in a denial of the most fundamental human rights.” Furthermore, he said this denial can “lead to a negation of the very principles we work so hard for, such as open societies with access to full freedom of expression…”

He then called on the States to “consider the human rights implications of any steps they take in response to this threat; that human rights be at the centre of such a response, particularly freedom of information. To ignore fundamental human rights is “to give comfort to less open forms of government”, Vieira de Mello commented.

President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Peter Schieder, during Friday’s luncheon at the Intercontinental, on 22 November, reinforced the message on terrorism. “Censorship serves the cause of terrorism”. “We must preserve and defend the values that the terrorists serve to destroy,” he went on to say.

Director of IPI, Johann P. Fritz, echoed the views of the speakers when he said, “The best defence against the violence of terrorism is an open form of government that ensures the free flow of information. We have to maintain freedom of the media as a means of distinguishing democracy from terrorism.

Should we fail to do so, we risk turning back the clock to the days when much of the world’s media was suppressed by a number of governments around the globe.”