Article 19 (organization)
Article 19 is a UK-based charity dedicated to promoting and protecting the right to freedom of opinion and expression, inspired by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This organization acts as a global watchdog against censorship, employing a network of correspondents to document and report violations of free expression around the world. It raises awareness of issues such as the detention of individuals for their opinions, violence against journalists, and the suppression of media outlets. Article 19 publishes a variety of resources, including the Article 19 Bulletin and comprehensive reports on state censorship practices. The organization's efforts also address subtler forms of censorship, such as restrictive laws, societal pressures, and cultural norms that inhibit free speech. While its work highlights extensive violations in authoritarian regimes, it also scrutinizes censorship mechanisms in democratic societies. Through its advocacy, Article 19 seeks to ensure that diverse voices can be heard and that fundamental freedoms are safeguarded globally.
Article 19 (organization)
Founded: 1986
Type of organization: London-based international human rights organization that promotes freedom of expression and information
Significance: Article 19 has monitored censorship in all forms of media throughout the world
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations unanimously adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document containing thirty numbered articles spelling out rights that all nations should regard as inalienable. Three of its articles pertain directly to free expression:
Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20
- 1.Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
- 2.No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
In 1966 the U.N. General Assembly gave the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the force of law by redrafting it as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Member states that sign this covenant acknowledge a legal obligation to honor each of its articles. States that sign an optional protocol open themselves to legal action by citizens who claim that their rights under the covenant have been violated. By the early 1990’s 92 of the 164 U.N. member nations had signed the covenant and 51 of these had signed the protocol.
Source: Charles Humana, comp. World Human Rights Guide. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Registered as a charity within the United Kingdom, Article 19 took its name from Article 19 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Acting as a watchdog of censorship issues through a worldwide network of correspondents, the organization has brought violations of free expression to the attention of appropriate local officials in various countries, while publicizing such violations worldwide. It has also sent representatives to various councils addressing censorship issues, and it has worked directly for the release of persons imprisoned or otherwise sanctioned by governmental acts of censorship. The organization publishes Article 19 Bulletin and monographs on free speech suppression and censorship in various countries, and it has issued surveys of information freedom and censorship worldwide in regular Article 19 World Reports. During the 1990’s its Article 19 Commentary Series issued a dozen reports each year, prepared on a country-by-country basis matching reports on the same countries by the U.N. Human Rights Committee.
Article 19 has also publicized the detentions of persons peacefully expressing opinions; the torturing, killing, or deportation of journalists; book confiscations; arrests of politicians; and closings of newspapers and broadcast stations. Specific cases have included the death sentence that Iran issued against author Salman Rushdie. Article 19 has also publicized more subtle violations of free expression, such as “standards” effectively censoring information on sex, violence, obscenity, and indecency that range from film classification to outright bans. Other violations that it has exposed include misuses of libel and privacy laws, laws appealing to national security or restricting access to information or limitations silencing government employees, standards of “blasphemy,” restrictions on access to radio and satellite bands, wartime military news blackouts, limitations on printing presses and supplies, political embargoes that include bans on the importation of books, denial of food relief to protesting antigovernment minorities, limitations on “hate speech” and terrorist statements, cultures of secrecy that promote self-censorship, and the subtle informal censorship enforced by social ostracism and economic control.
Although dictatorships have often been cited for their use of force and blatant censorship, Article 19 has also drawn attention to the use of immigration law and deportation in the United Kingdom and censorship embodied in flag desecration laws in the United States.
Although support of freedom of expression is a recognized part of international law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations and the European Convention on Human Rights, the implementation of such rights has varied widely due to varying cultural standards of rights, security, and morals.