Free press necessary for democracy and development – President Nasheed

President Mohamed Nasheed has said a free press and a free discourse of ideas were necessary for consolidating democracy and achieving development.

Speaking at a lunch function jointly hosted by the UN and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture to celebrate World Press Freedom Day, the President said, “We want to have a free press and we want to do this because we strongly believe that freedom of press is important for consolidating democracy, and we also strongly believe that development can only be achieved through a free press.”

The President continued his speech saying that one of the very first things that the then opposition did after coming to power was stopping a paper that would have been pro-government, adding that it was “at a very great huge cost” because there were no pro-government newspapers.

He stated while every new regime in the Maldives in the past saw a “spring” for media freedom that last only a brief period, President Nasheed expressed pleasure that his administration passed that period “without gagging or without harassing the press”.

“What we did was exactly the opposite of what other governments in the past have done which was to dissolve or harass the previous government’s newspapers and come up with new ones,” he said.

Calling for toleration of “any amount of criticisms” during the formative years of democracy, Nasheed cautioned that the concept of ‘responsible journalism’ was “very often a phrase used by politicians when they want to gag” press freedom.

“So in my mind all journalism is responsible and how responsible it is of course depends on where you are standing and how you are reading it. When you are praising me of course I might see them as very responsible and someone else might see them as something very irresponsible.”

The President said forces internal to the process of journalism will determine which news agencies would be read and listened to by the public.

He continued that the changes were already taking place, saying that “a number of private, very dynamic news agencies have been shifting their line or shifting the manner in the outlook in which they write.”

At the function, President Mohamed Nasheed also launched a new media award entitled, ‘Journalist of the Year Award’. The award will be dedicated to press freedom and will be given annually, beginning 2011.

Besides the President, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Dr Ahmed Ali Sawad spoke at the ceremony.