merrion street

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, in his capacity as OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, today opened a conference on the challenges to freedom of expression and media freedom online.

Experts and representatives from OSCE participating States, civil society organizations, media and business are taking part in the two-day conference.

Speaking at the event the Tánaiste said:

We, in government, have an obligation to enable our citizens to access the Internet unhindered. Yet some governments are increasingly resorting to a variety of measures to restrict such freedoms, contrary to OSCE commitments and to international human rights law.

In bringing together this diverse group of panellists, our hope is to inform, to stimulate discussion, and, ultimately, to guide OSCE participating States and other key stakeholders to make informed choices.

The conference opened with a high-level panel discussion that focused on ways to ensure that the Internet remains an open, global and public forum for freedom of opinion and expression and a platform for facilitating the exercise of other human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The conference is being streamed live at:

http://www.osce.org/event/internetfreedom2012.

A live Twitter feed (@NetFreedom2012) is being used to feed questions and comments into the different working sessions.