The University of Sciences and Arts in Lebanon \u201cUSAL\u201d marked World Press Freedom Day, which the United Nations set on the third of May each year, with a solidarity gathering with the missing and abducted journalists in the Arab world, organized by the students of the university's media department, in which members of the university's administrative and teaching bodies took part.
The lecturer of the course \u201cManaging Media Institutions\u201d at the university, Farah Baalbaki, opened the gathering with the national anthem, then the head of the syndicate of audiovisual workers Randala Jabbour delivered the speech of the university's media department, in which she pointed to \u201cthe importance of freedom as a value inseparable from press work, and the firm relationship binding this value to the truth and to guaranteeing the right to differ\u201d, focusing on \u201cthe importance of training media students in freedom before teaching them any subject\u201d. She addressed them, saying: \u201cStudents, builders of Lebanon's future - be free. Be yourselves.. Be the free voice crying out in the wilderness of the illusory shackles they planted in the hope that we might submit.. Come out of the boxes of preconceived ideas and come out from behind the walls and the ramparts.\u201d
She added: \u201cEvery year may the Lebanese press be freer within the bounds of responsibility, and outside the shackles of money, politics, ramparts and sectarianism and denominationalism.\u201d
The student Douha Hamadi delivered the speech of the university's students, in which she affirmed that \u201cthe hardships of the press profession do not result from effort and fatigue but from the challenges besetting a journalist's personal and professional freedom\u201d, expressing \u201cher anxiety about what media students may face in their future profession\u201d. She said: \u201cIn my name and in the name of my colleagues, the students of the media department at the University of Sciences and Arts in Lebanon (USAL), and given the violations of press freedom we witness in Lebanon and the infringement of the rights and freedoms of Lebanese journalists, we express our anxiety about what we may face in our future profession, and we appeal to the bodies concerned with media freedoms to support the freedom of the media and of journalists, and to remove all the ambiguities and anxieties about our freedom to carry out our mission.\u201d
A group of Lebanese journalists also joined the university's students in their gathering with audio recordings. The \u201cLBCI\u201d correspondent Houda Chedid said: \u201cPress freedom is not writing and speaking correctly; it is a dignified living\u201d, pointing to the \u201cliving difficulties\u201d a journalist suffers.
The \u201cOTV\u201d correspondent Nancy Saab said: \u201cFreedom is a moral and national responsibility, so that freedom may remain the ink of our pens. We can begin from a solidarity gathering at USAL so as to complete the journey of defending press freedom.\u201d
The \u201cAl-Mayadeen\u201d channel presenter Gracia Bitar pointed out that \u201cthe press is subjected to a new kind of tutelage: money, trivialization and the exclusion of women\u201d.
The journalist Leila Chahwan of \u201cT\u00e9l\u00e9 Liban\u201d said: \u201cThe Lebanese press has always paid the tax of freedom, and the tax has always been martyrdom.\u201d
For his part the journalist Rami Daher of \u201cSawt Al-Shaab\u201d said: \u201cWorld Press Freedom Day should be the object of attention in the Arab world, and the press should keep away from fanaticism and extremism.\u201d
The \u201cAl-Nour\u201d radio correspondent Ilham Najem affirmed \u201cthat martyrdom is the most precious thing a journalist can offer in their professional journey\u201d.
The writer at the \u201cAl-Akhbar\u201d newspaper Dawoud Rammal said: \u201cWe in Lebanon have our uniqueness in the press and in freedom; it is entrusted to us as the homeland is entrusted to us.\u201d
The writer at \u201cL'Orient-Le Jour\u201d Scarlett Haddad said: \u201cThe new harassment to which a journalist is subjected by the successive governing regimes is what limits press freedom, and the newly emerging threat is the financial threat, because the majority of media institutions are owned by the holders of major interests in order to promote their interests at the expense of the freedom of the media and of knowledge. It is our duty to fortify the press in both its new and its old forms.\u201d
The journalist at the \u201cAl-Nahar\u201d newspaper Ibrahim Bayram held \u201cthat press freedom is a cause that concerns us always and forever, not only as journalists but as Lebanese defenders of the word - for the defence of the word is a constant and sustained matter\u201d.
All the speakers saluted the media students at USAL for \u201ctheir initiative and their concern to mark World Press Freedom Day\u201d, while the gathering closed with free expression by the students and the participants in the occasion, and a commemorative photograph. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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