Canada oasis of press rights in hostile world: Kothawala
Anne Kothawala, President and CEO of the Canadian Newspaper
Association, has some thoughts about freedom of expression in Canada
and the world, published in the Globe and Mail to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3. Canada’s “democracy is an anomaly in a planet hostile to basic freedoms. If we don’t…
Anne Kothawala, President and CEO of the Canadian Newspaper Association, has some thoughts about freedom of expression in Canada and the world, published in the Globe and Mail to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3. Canada’s “democracy is an anomaly in a planet hostile to basic freedoms. If we don’t celebrate them, who will?” asks Kothawala. An excerpt:
“World Press Freedom Day, which we mark tomorrow, reminds us that Western democracy is a small oasis in a world of brutal coercion that paradoxically fears nothing as much as free speech and thought.
“Napoleon said he preferred to face “a thousand bayonets” than hostile newspapers. So he shut them down. Two centuries later, the world’s autocrats have not changed their tactics.
