Teresa Ribeiro was born in Mozambique in 1954 and has a degree in Philosophy from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. She was Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, Secretary of State for European Affairs, between 2008 and 2009, Administrator of the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP), in 2010 and 2011. She chaired the Institute of Social Communication (ICS ) in 2000-2008, he was also Chairman of the Council of Europe’s Media Steering Committee in 1999-2000. And, before that, she was president of the Communication Observatory. She is now the Representative for Freedom of the Media at the OSCE, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In an interview with TSFon the eve of International Press Freedom Day, assumes that “Freedom of the press plays a fundamental role in democracy and peace.”
The former ruler acknowledges that the war is having a major impact on a multilateral body like the OSCE: “It is having a huge impact, because obviously the OSCE has among its participating states Russia, Ukraine, the United States, Canada and the whole of the European Union and Central Asia. Impact and maybe it’s probably the organizations, from a political point of view. sight, who feel this impact the most”. Could the OSCE be doing more for a solution to the war, since it is an organization of which the Russian Federation is a part? Or, precisely because of that, his hands are tied? Teresa Ribeiro has no doubts: “I think that at this point it is still early to think about an OSCE intervention. What seems important to me is to manage to maintain the OSCE as a security organization and with such a broad composition, until there is, let’s say, a refoundation that will surely come when peace also arrives. This seems absolutely essential to me. I think it is too early for a stronger, more visible OSCE intervention, because we are currently nowhere to find, within the framework of this organization, solutions for peace.”
But is the existence of the OSCE in danger? Teresa Ribeiro does not hide the complexity of the situation that the multilateral organization is experiencing: “We are in a complex moment, for various reasons. This is an irony, at a time when the OSCE is perhaps more relevant than ever. A complex moment because, at the end of this year, we will have the end of the mandates of the four top 4 of the organization: Secretary General, Representative for Media Freedom, Director of the Human Rights Office and High Commissioner for Minorities . So we have this problem. And obviously we have, clearly, the problem that Russia is looking for. with enormous suspicion towards the institutions of the human dimension. And therefore, the renewal of mandates or the appointment of new representatives is by consensus, and some of the participating states, let’s be clear: Russia is clearly not committed to the human dimension.
As Representative for Media Freedom, Teresa Ribeiro seeks “with great concern” For the current state of press freedom in the European space of the countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe: “With enormous pessimism, with enormous pessimism. We are witnessing, in fact, a huge setback in terms of democracy. And that is what, globally, is a reality. So that we understand the dimension of the problem: according to Cities of Democracy, in the report that he recently prepared, we are in terms of democracy at the level of 1989 and in terms of freedom of expression, according to last year’s report, with indices, which are the indices of 1984, in the midst of the Cold War. Therefore, and this is the reality of both democracy in the world, as well as the freedom of the media and freedom of expression. I think this should make us think and above all act”.
The former Secretary of State Augusto Santos Silva says that there is a “terrible setback in terms of media freedom, through the immense forms of silencing, violence, harassment” and says many times “There is not even a great awareness at the political level that if we do not preserve the freedom of the press, we will have even more problems in terms of democracy. And that seems to me worrying. So I don’t think there is a full awareness of this connection between media freedom and democracy, because, in fact, we have to act, that, that there is no doubt. We have to act against those who deliberately silence the media. But we also have to act with information that is a highly disruptive ecosystem, also because of the platforms and the enormous misinformation that wreaks havoc in that same space. We have to act because journalists have less and less space for their work.”
Press freedom representative advocates for changes “in this whole ecosystem”, so as not to jeopardize the sustainability and viability of the media: “What we see and see in almost all countries is a great weakness in terms of the sustainability of the media and their and, therefore, their lives, their ability to continue doing their job. work, to protect its journalists, to give them the necessary conditions so that this work can be carried out in the best way and responding to the demands of the profession”. Teresa Ribeiro understands that “Authoritarian governments clearly know full well that press freedom is absolutely essential to democracy.” And therefore, does it matter to silence her? Is this how these regimes think? “Undoubtedly”. But there are also, among democracies, “Some lack of awareness that this connection is absolutely essential and that we must preserve media freedom at all costs if we want to continue to have democratic societies.”
Source: TSF
