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The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, today denounced the deaths of photographer Habiba Abdelaziz and cameraman Mick Deane in Cairo on 14 August.

Habiba Abdelaziz, who worked for the Dubai-based weekly Xpress, and Mick Deane, a veteran cameraman for the British Sky News television, sustained fatal gunshot injuries while covering the demonstrations in Cairo’s Raba Al Adawiya. According to Reporters Without Borders and other media sources, at least four other photographers and journalists were injured in the clashes, which also claimed several hundred other victims.

            “I deplore the deaths of Habiba Abdelaziz and Mick Deane,” the Director-General said. “I call on the Egyptian authorities to do all they can for the safety of media workers in the interest of both freedom of expression and freedom of information.”

            Their death brings to three the number of journalists killed in Egypt this year. They are remembered in the dedicated webpage, UNESCO Condemns Killing of Journalists.

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            Media contact: Sylvie Coudray, +33 (0)1 45 68 42 12

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…”