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Leading journalists and media lawyers will meet in New York today to discuss
ways of fighting LEGAL threats to press freedom around the world.

The meeting will form part of the launch in the USA of a new international
body to fight oppression of the media wherever it occurs - the London-based
Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI). While there are many bodies already
working in the media freedom field, the MLDI is dedicated to supporting
journalists and media organisations facing unjustified court action.

"There is nothing new about clamping down on free expression, but
governments today are increasingly making use of the courts to frighten and
silence their critics, while powerful private interests are turning to the
civil and even criminal law for the same reason. Every day brings news of a
reporter somewhere who is arrested or a newspaper sued simply for doing
their professional duty," said the MLDI's executive director, Gugulethu
Moyo.

"In such cases we will pay for defence lawyers and provide other support to
face down legal intimidation."

The discussion panel will be led by Floyd Abrams, one of the most respected
advocates of media freedom in the world and a Patron of the new body, who
said: "Lamentably, law itself is being misused as a tool to silence the
press by those who seek to avoid its scrutiny. The need to confront this
legal oppression is great and global. The MLDI has a crucial role to play in
assisting the defence of press freedom in the courts."

The other members of the panel are David McCraw (head of
freedom-of-information litigation for the New York Times), Karinna
Moskalenko (a leading human rights lawyer in Russia), Mark Stephens (a
British lawyer currently campaigning for reform of the UK's libel laws),
Harry Roque (a Philippines law professor and prominent defender of press
freedom) and Ndey Tapha Sosseh (president of the Gambian Press Union.)