The Arab Working Group for Monitoring of Media Coverage of Elections
22 May 2006
Press Release
The Arab Working Group for Monitoring of Media Coverage of Elections (AWG) held a meeting in Copenhagen 16-18 May 2006. The meeting’s aim was to evaluate efforts on monitoring media performance during the last elections in Tunisia, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt.
The meeting also discussed the following issues:
- Suggestion on capacity building of NGOs working in the media monitoring field.
- An Arabic directory release about monitoring of media neutrality during elections.
The Arab Working Group for Monitoring of Media Coverage of Elections
22 May 2006
Press ReleaseThe Arab Working Group for Monitoring of Media Coverage of Elections (AWG) held a meeting in Copenhagen 16-18 May 2006. The meeting’s aim was to evaluate efforts on monitoring media performance during the last elections in Tunisia, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt.
The meeting also discussed the following issues:
- Suggestion on capacity building of NGOs working in the media monitoring field.
- An Arabic directory release about monitoring of media neutrality during elections.
- Enlarge (AWG) membership for more associated organizations in the Arab world.
- Preparations of (AWG) participation in the coming local and presidential elections in Yemen.
The Arab Working Group for monitoring media coverage of elections is an Arab initiative, which aims to adopt international standards of freedom of opinion and expression, free media and fair elections. The AWG initiative also aims to improve performance of the Arab media in elections coverage through:
- Improvement of media monitoring methods.
- Influence the region’s governments to improve media and elections legislation.
- Work on reform of governmental media institutions in a way that ensures neutrality and independence during election coverage.
- Empowerment of independent media.
- Stylizing training programs for journalists in election coverage.
NGO’s members of (AWG) include:-
- Bahrain Center for Human Rights – Bahrain
- Lebanese Society for Democratic Elections – Lebanon
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies- Egypt
- National Council for Freedom – Tunisia
- Filastiniyat – Palestine
- Human Rights Information &training Center (HRITC) – Yemen
The Arab Working Group for Monitoring Media Coverage of Elections works in partnership with the International Media Support (IMS), the Network Media Program of the Open Society Foundation (OSF) and international media monitoring experts from Slovakia, Italy, and Great Britain.