HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE DISCUSSES DRAFT GENERAL COMMENT ON THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

The Human Rights Committee this afternoon continued its first reading, begun in October 2009, of a draft General Comment on States parties' obligations under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, setting out the rights to hold an opinion without interference and to freedom of expression.

Michael O'Flaherty, the Committee Expert serving as rapporteur for the draft General Comment, introducing a revised text stemming from the discussions on Monday, 18 October, said that the Committee had decided to invert paragraphs 41 and 42, which Experts had said captured their interests. He also pointed out that the Committee needed to protect the old-fashioned journalistic space, whilst ensuring space for the new media, whatever that may be, and the concomitant need to rein in the State and make sure it did not interfere in these spaces.

The Committee reviewed the document on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, beginning from paragraph 38, which was where it had ended during its discussion on 18 October, reviewing sections on scope of expression by the media and related information gathering/dissemination actors, restrictions related to counter-terrorism measures, restrictions and defamation laws, and restrictions and blasphemy laws.

Experts commented and proposed changes to the draft General Comment, pointing out, among other things, that the Comment seemed very flexible with regard to private media, and very strict with regard to State-owned media; the point was to avoid a predominance of either type. It was dominance that led to restrictions on the freedom of expression, an Expert pointed out. An Expert pointed out that the term "freedom of the press" was used nowhere in the text, and it was a traditional and very important term, which should perhaps be used somewhere in the text in order to reinforce its importance. Another pointed out that the important issue was the "freedom of the media", given the various types of new media. An Expert said that with regard to terrorist incidents that were intolerable to populations, then a certain limitation of freedom of speech when referring to these incidents could be understandable and a State could have a legitimate interest in applying restrictions in that context. An Expert said the Committee had to come out expressly against the criminalisation of defamation.

The Committee publishes its interpretation of the content of human rights provisions, known as General Comments, on thematic issues or its methods of work. To date, it has issued 33 General Comments. The general comments of all human rights treaty bodies are compiled annually and the latest version can be found under the following link: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/comments.htm.

The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. on Thursday 21 October, when will continue its work on the Draft General Comment.


For use of information media; not an official record

CT10/023E