Topic: Freedom of the Press
Country: Netherlands
Delegate Name: Sarah Fries
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Netherlands position papers GLIMUN 2009 committees
The Kingdom of the Netherlands believes that freedom of the press in its entirety is one of the most important values for a nation to encourage. Being within the top ten most free countries for press and media, we stand wholly stand behind any member state trying to eliminate censorship and encouraging the freedom of press within their borders.
The most imperative reason for promoting free press within nations is for the purpose of education. It is necessary that for a country to operate efficiently, its people must be well informed on the nations issues and positions on specific subject matters. Not to mention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also grants every being the right to free press and personal beliefs. “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontier.” Some nations, such as North Korea, Burma, and China, exceedingly restrict the free press laws and the nations’ governments control almost, if not all, of the information released the citizens residing there. They could argue that it is only benefiting the people, and that they are solely trying to protect and keep the citizens’ best interests in mind. But, would the world not be in a much better place if everyone was equally informed about all issues, because then we could actually settle disputes with an unbiased and well-educated debate.
Overall, the freedom of the press is not only significant to educate people, but also important for the purpose of create equality and truth to every human on this earth. We have the right as living beings to express ourselves and to spread information, so for the good of mankind, it would be in every member state’s interest to allow its citizens to exercise their liberties regarding press and the media.
