Mr President,
Sweden aligns itself with the statement of Slovenia on behalf of the European Union. The freedom of expression is a venerable freedom, with a history stretching back long before it was enshrined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. It is a freedom which both holds an irrefutable value in its own right, and which is of central practical importance to the full enjoyment of many other freedoms. Democracy itself can not function unless ideas are free to be weighed, debated and measured against each other.
Indeed, the freedom to speak one’s mind and freely seek information is among the first rights many of us think of when we hear the term human rights.
Many of the problems that remain are familiar. Legislation in many countries continues to either limit the freedom, or be used to hinder its enjoyment. Censorship and harassment of journalists continues in many countries. Reporters without border estimate that 86 journalists were killed worldwide in 2007 when carrying out their work, more than a threefold increase in five years.
Some challenges, however, are new, or evolving. Two that come to mind are the rapid spread of new information channels, and the work against international terrorism.
The spread and development of new information channels is a fantastic development from the perspective of the freedom of expression. The dramatic lowering of costs for telephones, the rapid proliferation of cell phones and the breakthrough of e-mail have allowed an increase in the flow of information to an extent few of us would have been able to imagine 20 or so years ago. The development of the Internet, of course, is a fantastic chapter unto itself.
Those who would impede the freedom of expression have unfortunately managed to keep pace. The Internet is a chapter unto itself in this regard, too. Authorities continue to block websites in China, Iran, Egypt and other countries. Bloggers are harassed, censored and even imprisoned in many countries.
Our international efforts to stop terrorism must be carried out with full respect for human rights. This fundamental point is amply illustrated in the area of the freedom of expression. There is, perhaps, an irony in that terrorist organizations themselves are making use of new information channels. In many countries, including Sweden, we have faced issues of whether to adopt measures, for example, to store information on private citizens’ telephone and data traffic, to widen the right of the police and judicial bodies to tap telephones or to increase surveillance of public spaces.
We must be extremely vigilant, so that we do not get carried away and come to limit the freedoms we have fought so hard to win for ourselves.
As we all know, the freedom of expression is not absolute. Sweden and many other countries prohibit, for example, libel and the dissemination of classified information, in order to stop one person’s enjoyment of his or her freedoms from infringing on other persons’ rights. These restrictions, however, must only be very marginal in relation to the freedom of expression as a whole. They must never hinder the free and competitive flow of ideas that is the foundation of the freedom of expression. They must never allow us to question that the freedom of expression also covers the right to say things that many of us may consider painful, objectionable, dislikeable or simply stupid.
Looking at the issues I have mentioned, we can see that the Universal Declaration was very farsighted. We can and must apply it to the issues we face today. Article 19 makes perfectly clear that the freedom of expression includes the right to “hold opinions without interference” and to seek information “through any media”. It is up to us to demonstrate that we can rise to the task of allowing this freedom to be fulfilled and let the development of new information channels realize the enormous potential of actually reinforcing the enjoyment of the freedom of expression.
Thank you Mr President.