SS Faure attends global conference on media freedom and Commonwealth foreign affairs ministers meeting in London |13 July 2019

Ambassador Barry Faure, secretary of state for Foreign Affairs and the Blue Economy represented Vice-President Vincent Meriton, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, at the first Ministerial Global Conference for Media Freedom co-hosted by the governments of the United Kingdom and Canada in London from July 10 to 11, 2019.

The two-day conference saw the participation of ministers and other representatives of close to 130 countries and hundreds of journalists and media houses.

The conference addressed the rise in attacks on media freedom which are viewed as attacks on the human rights of journalists and those working in media organisations.

Ministers agreed that media freedom is the lifeblood of democracy and without it economic prosperity and development are hindered.

Governments were urged to redouble their efforts to defend media freedom and ministers signed a global pledge on media freedom committing to work together to protect media freedom.

Ambassador Faure signed the pledge on behalf of Seychelles.

Ambassador Faure also represented Vice-President Meriton at the Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting (CFAMM) held on July 10 in London. The foreign ministers met to take stock of progress in the implementation of the mandates given by the heads of government at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London in April 2018.

Rwanda, as host of the next CHOGM in 2020, presented the high-level policy paper for the meeting in Kigali and gave an update on the status of preparations.

Ministers also discussed the two high level reports (HLG) on the governance of the Commonwealth secretariat.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the London Declaration in 1949 which founded the modern Commonwealth, ministers reaffirmed their commitments to the ‘core values and principles’ of the Commonwealth Charter by adopting an affirmation which draws on declarations made by Commonwealth leaders through seven decades.

Ambassador Faure was accompanied to these meetings by Ambassador Derick Ally, Seychelles’ high commissioner to the UK and Terry Romain, principal counsellor at the Seychelles high commission in London.