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Director-General condemns killing of Egyptian photojournalist Ahmed Assem el-Senousy and urges respect for journalists’ right to safety
The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, today denounced the killing of Egyptian press photographer Ahmed Assem el-Senousy and urged the authorities to respect the right of journalists to carry out their work in safe conditions.
“I condemn the killing of Ahmed Assem el-Senousy,” the Director-General said. “I urge all parties to respect the need of journalists to perform their professional duties safely. Society as a whole depends on free and independent media to make informed choices.”
El-Senousy, 26 was a photographer with the newspaper Al-Horreya-Wal-Adalah (Freedom and Justice). He was shot dead on 8 July while covering a demonstration..
The journalist is remembered in the dedicated webpage, UNESCO Condemns Killing of Journalists.
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UNESCO is the United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom. Article 1 of its Constitution requires the Organization to “further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations.” To realize this the Organization is requested to “collaborate in the work of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication and to that end recommend such international agreements as may be necessary to promote the free flow of ideas by word and image…”
