A Dozen Press Freedom Posters

A selection of posters from the IISH collection that deal with press freedom, on the occasion of International Press Freedom Day. The selection shows that "freedom of the press" not only applies to newspapers and television, but also to the posters themselves, to pamphlets and radio.

In political processes of democratization, campaigns for freedom of the press, as well as being aimed at freedom of the press, are themselves part of the struggle. This is the true in Poland, South Africa, and Indonesia.

The posters from England and Germany, too, show that even in the established Western democracies press freedom can be threatened. Freedom of the press is one of the first to go when political conflicts become violent. The present threat of terrorism clearly shows this, but it is also visible in conflicts in the recent past in Northern Ireland and Germany.

Resistance against violations of freedom of the press begins by critically monitoring authorities, as the American poster of Amnesty International shows. Effective in this regard is to draw the attention of those in power to their own rules and laws, as the Solidarity poster does.

Previous 3 May contributions:
2004: About banishing the union activist J.A. Brandsteder from the Dutch East Indies in 1919.

2003: About the murder of four Dutch journalists, including Koos Koster, in El Salvador 1982.

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