By Tatiana Sell
An organization created by members of the telecommunications industry launched on Dec. 5 a campaign to to raise awareness about the "oppressive circumstances" many media outlets face across the continent.
The Studies Center for Telecommunications Development and Information Access in Latin America (CERTAL in Spanish) will start its campaign, "Embrace Freedom of Expression," with a conference on Dec. 6 at Brigham Young University, which will be broadcasted live on Internet at 12 p.m. (MST). Click here to watch the live stream.
"This campaign is a call to citizens’ conscience, public opinion, politicians and the media, about the importance of collective commitment with the independence of the media," said CERTAL's president Pablo Scotellaro on the organization’s website.
According to La Red 21, members of the telecommunications industry created the non-profit organization in 2010 to monitor regulation in the region.
Besides the conference, other actions will be promoted during the next few days through their Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the hashtag #AbrazoLibertadExpresion.
A few days before the launch of this campaign, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange in Latin America and Caribbean Alliance (IFEX-ALC) published its first report on impunity in Latin America, which underscored indirect government censorship as a prevailing trend in the region.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
