Date & Time
11:00am, 22 October 2024 - 12:30pm, 22 October 2024Location
Tanoa Tusitala Hotel, Beach Road, Apia, SamoaAbout the event
Over a third of Commonwealth nations experienced sharp declines in media freedom in the decade to 2022. This decline, coupled with rising censorship and legal attacks on free expression, threatens transparency, accountability, and the ability of Commonwealth citizens to participate in their governance. In this session we will document and confront the urgent challenges to freedom of expression that are growing across the Commonwealth. Our speakers will explore how the contraction of civic space impacts everything from election integrity to environmental reporting, as well as the crucial role of online platforms as both tools of empowerment and vehicles for disinformation. As Heads of Government prepare to approve the Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression in Samoa, we will explore the practical ways in which the Organisation can strengthen this most fundamental of rights into the future.
Photo: Commonwealth Secretariat
Guests
Shahidul Alam, obtained a PhD in chemistry from London University, before taking up photography. Returning to his native country
Bangladesh in 1984, he campaigned to bring down autocratic General Hussain Muhammad Ershad. In his pursuit of social justice he set up the award winning organisations, Drik, Pathshala and Chobi Mela, through media, education and culture.
His book “My journey as a witness” has been described by John Morris, the legendary picture editor of Life Magazine, as the ‘most important book ever written by a photographer’. A recognised public speaker, Alam has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford and Yale universities. He has been exhibited at MOMA, Tate Modern and Centre Georges Pompidou.
His awards include the Lucie Foundation award considered the Oscars of photography, as well as the Shilpakala Award, the highest cultural award given to Bangladeshi artists. Alam is the only person of colour to have chaired the prestigious international jury of World Press Photo. He is a visiting professor at Sunderland University and an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Kalafi Moala is an experienced journalist and media consultant based in Tonga. In 1989, he founded Tonga’s first independent newspaper and acquired a radio network, operating as Taimi Media Network. After 30 years, he sold the company and briefly retired.
He then launched Talanoa ‘o Tonga, an online media platform with a website and other digital news outlets. He also operates a news agency specializing in investigative journalism, focusing on anti-corruption work.
Kalafi is dedicated to promoting societal development in Tonga and the Pacific region through his journalism and media efforts.
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. She has covered politics, gender, and social justice in print, TV, and online media for 17 years. Most of her work is investigative, narrative and long-form. She reports for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Caravan, The Wire and others. She has won over a dozen international and national journalism awards including One Young World Journalist of the Year Award 2020, the International Press Freedom Award 2019 from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Journalist 2017, the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism 2014, Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism from the European Commission, 2011 among others. Her first non-fiction book ‘The Many Lives of Syeda X’ was published in July, 2024.
Lance Polu is the Editor of the privately owned and independent multi-media company Talamua Media he founded in 1994. Before that, he worked for the state-owned Government Radio and Television for 15 years where he was Head of News & Programmes. Talamua Media owns and operates the Online News Website www.talamua.com and YouTube channel @TalamuaMedia. He led the Samoan Journalists Association – JAWS for 15 years which was legally established by an Act of Parliament, the Media Council Act 2015 and had been advocating for the freedom of information and the vital role of an independent media in a functional democracy. He has been instrumental in developing Journalism and Media Studies at the National University of Samoa, and was President of the regional media organisation PINA. He also served on the Executive Board of the London-based Commonwealth Journalists Association CJA, which he will represent in CHOGM 2024.
Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and environmental justice activist, who currently is the President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and a Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University. He is the former Secretary-General of Amnesty International (2018-2020) and also the first person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International (2009-2015). He is an advisor for the Community Arts Network. He serves as a global ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity. His family has started the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism to build on the positive legacies left by popular South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through his music and life’s work. Kumi is the author of award-winning Letters To My Mother: The Makings of a Troublemaker. Kumi is also the host of the podcast Power, People and Planet.
Discussion
Date & Time
11:00am, 22 October 2024 - 12:30pm, 22 October 2024 AST (GMT + 13)
Location
Tanoa Tusitala Hotel, Beach Road, Apia, Samoa
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