In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
May prayers and peace be upon the noblest of prophets and messengers, our master Muhammad, and upon all his family and companions
Honourable Minister of Culture, Youth, Sports and Relations with Parliament
Honourable Human Rights Commissioner
. President of the National Human Rights Commission
President of the High Authority for the Press and Audiovisual Media
Director of the Presidency of the Republic’s Media Office
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors
Heads of media organisations
Head of the Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties
Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Rights Training and Documentation
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
We are pleased to welcome you today at the beginning of this distinguished media meeting organised by the Mauritanian Journalists’ Union in cooperation with the Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties and Human Rights and in partnership with the United Nations Centre for Human Rights Training and Documentation. I thank you in advance for making the effort to attend and wish our honoured guests a pleasant stay in their second country, Mauritania.
Distinguished gathering,
This meeting, primarily consisting of — a seminar on the importance of respecting press freedom, protecting journalists and ensuring their safety during reporting
in the field, and a training course for professional journalists in our country — brings together dozens of media professionals, human rights advocates and experts from different countries. It therefore provides an important opportunity to learn about our country first-hand, the advanced stages it has reached in freedom of expression and liberalisation of the audiovisual sector, and the goals and results achieved in human rights.
With Allah’s help, this meeting will provide a forum for guidance and the exchange of views and expertise with the seminar’s guests, including journalists and international experts in human rights and public liberties. It will offer an opportunity to trace the media sector’s progress in advancing freedoms, examine the obstacles it faces, and identify the most effective ways to address the challenges to strengthening press freedom in its broadest sense.
Ladies and gentlemen
We meet today to lay the foundations together for a genuine start towards realising press freedoms in service of the media’s mission. We are driven by the serious political will of our country’s highest authorities to develop and professionalise the media sector: beginning with the establishment of a reform committee and a commitment to consider its recommendations, continuing through successive reforms to the electronic press law, the draft Professional Journalist Act, the restructuring of the High Authority for the Press and Audiovisual Media and the Press Support Fund, and reaching the implementation of statutes favourable to journalists in public media organisations.
Distinguished participants,
Achievements have been made; others are awaited, and we at the Mauritanian Journalists’ Union — through you and with you — seek to secure them in service of journalists’ material and moral rights. We aim to help advance press freedoms and create a national public opinion capable of influencing and shaping the landscape. This leads me to call on official authorities and media stakeholders to contribute actively to making this endeavour a success.
I greatly hope that this major media meeting will provide an opportunity for our country to regain the position it deservedly held in the rankings of international organisations concerned with media freedom and human rights. I also hope it will enrich the seminar and training workshops and show a fitting image of our national media and human rights landscape.
On behalf of the Mauritanian Journalists’ Union, I again thank the Ministry of Culture, Youth, Sports and Relations with Parliament for its tremendous contribution to organising this meeting, and the Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties and Human Rights and the United Nations Centre for Human Rights Training and Documentation for their cooperation. I also extend my sincere thanks to everyone who contributed, directly or indirectly, to the meeting’s success, and affirm our readiness in the Union to build bridges of cooperation and coordination with everyone in service of the media’s mission.
Peace, mercy and Allah’s blessings be upon you.