Media support delegation goes to Libya

The delegation, in Libya until 3 November, will meet media practitioners, officials of the National Transitional Council and will hold workshops on media law, audio visual regulation, media safety and building a vibrant free media. Visits to media outlets in Benghazi, Tripoli and other Libyan cities are planned.

Senior NTC official Mahmoud Shammam welcomed the delegation.

"The delegation's mission and aim of working with local media outlets and helping us regulate the media landscape in the new Libya is exactly what we need at this time," he said.

The visit is the initiative of the Copenhagen-based International Media Support, (IMS), the Doha Centre for Media Freedom and the Amman-based Community media Network (CMN).

The trip's goals

The delegation also includes representatives of Article 19, Internews (US), Free Press Unlimited (Holland), International News Safety Institute, Sawt Al Hurr (Egypt), PenMedia (Palestine), the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), and Arab Network for Human Rights Information (Egypt).

"The goal of our trip is not merely to assess the media situation; we are going to Libya to show solidarity with independent Libyan journalists and the fledgling free media and to find ways in which we can work together," said mission spokesman Daoud Kuttab, director general of CMN from Jordan.

Jesper Hojberg of IMS from Denmark said that the visit will help international media organization to coordinate and "better focus its efforts based on the expressed needs of our Libyan colleagues."

Jan Keulen, director of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, called the visit an "important foundation for a holistic Arab and international approach to the building of a free media in the new Libya." Keulen suggested a possible follow up meeting in Doha, Qatar this winter.