UNESCO bans WikiLeaks from international conference on WikiLeaks
An international UNESCO press freedom conference being held today, February 16-17, on the subject of WikiLeaks has restricted the free information publisher from appearing. As a result, WikiLeaks has denounced UNESCO and its decision as a “ban.”
The conference, The Media World after Wikileaks and News of the World, has been organized by the international non-governmental organization World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC) along with UNESCO. A press release boasts that “The range of speakers from all parts of the world will ensure that these questions are considered from the different perspectives of the global media village,” but leaves out WikiLeaks, one of the most important players in publishing in the last few years.
To put this contradiction in some perspective, it would be as if UNESCO and WPFC had organized a conference on The Pentagon Papers and failed to invite Daniel Ellsberg and The New York Times editors and reporters as speakers...