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ISSUE
RELATED ORGANIZATIONS
Alive!
Global Network:
Coalition of web sites reflecting
the diversity of culture, art, news, and politics around
the world.
Committee
to Protect Journalists:
The Committee to Protect Journalists is a nonpartisan,
nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to monitor abuses
against the press and promote press freedom around the
world.
Feminists
for Free Expression:
Working to preserve the individual’s right and
responsibility to read, listen, view, and produce materials
of her choice without the intervention of the state.
Freedom
Forum:
The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan, international
foundation dedicated to free press, free speech, and free
spirit for all people. The foundation pursues its priorities
through conferences, educational activities, publishing,
broadcasting, online services, fellowships, partnerships,
training, research, and other programs.
Freedom
House:
Nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to promotion
of democracy around the world.
Global Internet
Liberty Campaign:
The Global Internet Liberty Campaign was formed at
the annual meeting of the Internet Society in Montreal.
Members of the coalition include the American Civil Liberties
Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Human
Rights Watch, the Internet Society, Privacy International,
the Association des Utilisateurs d'Internet, and other
civil liberties and human rights organizations.
International Freedom of
Expression Exchange:
IFEX is a network of freedom of expression organizations
worldwide.
International Freedom to Publish Committee:
Founded in 1975 by the Association of American Publishers,
it is one of the first groups in the world formed specifically
to defend and broaden the freedom of the written word.
PEN:
International union of writers and journalists working
to promote human rights and in particular freedom of speech
and expression.
Reporters
Committee for Freedom of the Press:
Dedicated to providing free legal help to reporters
and news.
Reporters
Sans Frontieres:
Organization devoted to freedom of the press, medias
censored, journalists imprisoned, killed, or disappeared.
World Press
Freedom Committee:
Umbrella organization that includes fourty-four journalistic
groups on six continents united in the defense and promotion
of press freedom.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PUBLICATION LINKS:
Free Expression
on the Internet:
Reports, briefing papers, press releases on censorship
and the internet from Human Rights Watch.
Freedom
House Publications:
Freedom House's U.S. work includes an array of research,
advocacy, and publications to promote human rights, democracy,
free market economics, the rule of law, independent media,
and U.S. engagement abroad.
Index
on Censorship:
Bimonthly magazine for free speech that widens the
debates on freedom of expression with some of the world's
best writers.
World Press Freedom Committee’s
Publication List:
Comprehensive list of titles available from World
Press Freedom Committee.
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Censorship is one of the oldest and most commonly used mechanism to control
intellectual production. Defined as the changing or the suppression or
prohibition of speech or writing condemned as subversive of the common
good, censorship occurs in all manifestations of authority to some degree,
but in modern times it has been of special importance in its relation
to government and the rule of law.
Throughout the globe, writers and journalists are thrown in jail, tortured,
or even killed as a result of pursuing their profession. Several human
rights groups have campaigned extensively to release from prison such
luminaries as Arthur Koestler, Vaclav Havel, Irina Ratushinskaya, and
Wole Soyinka, all incarcerated for their writings.
Even in the United States where it is often believed that restraints upon
speaking and publishing are no longer a pressing issue, threats to the
First Amendment occur at every level of society. In New Hampshire for
example, Penny Culliton, a school teacher, was fired after she tried to
introduce books on homosexual themes, such as Maurice by E.M. Forster,
to eleventh and twelfth graders. The Freedom-to-Write Committee of PEN
American Center, along with its members Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, and
Grace Paley, mounted a campaign to reinstate her. A huge public outcry
followed, and Culliton settled with her school board soon afterward.
Sources: Britannica.com, PEN
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