Barry Sheerman – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to promote freedom of speech in the Middle East.

Mr David Lidington

Freedom of expression has been a human rights priority for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, from the beginning of this Parliament; and the subject of an Expert Group which advises Ministers. We raise press freedom regularly in multilateral fora, supporting relevant initiatives and resolutions, and in bilateral conversations – in both private and public. We regularly raise the importance of freedom of speech with counterparts in government across the Middle East and North Africa. Through our Arab Partnership Initiative, we are working to support the development of legitimate and inclusive institutions to improve governance, enable inclusive reform and protect fundamental freedoms such as freedom of speech. Our Arab Partnership Participation Fund has supported the training of journalists in countries across the region, including Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt to deliver un-biased reporting and work to protect freedom of speech. In Iraq, we have worked to build a legal and regulatory environment in order to allow Iraqi media to operate safely, freely and effectively.