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[Communique issued by the Regional Executive Board of the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) after its first meeting held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, last week.]

The Regional Executive Body meeting of South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) decided to hold its next annual meeting in Pakistan two days before the 12th SAARC Summit to push ahead its protocol on free-movement of media-persons and media-products across the region, beside holding 3rd South Asian Free Media Conference on 'Media and democracy' at Dhaka in March next year.

The SAFMA regional executive body meeting was held in Colombo last week to take stock of the situation facing the region, especially on issues of peace, freedom of media and democracy. The meeting was attended by leading journalists from five South Asian nations- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The SAFMA exectuvie decided to expedite that SAFMA should expedite its efforts for lifting of tariff and non-tariff barriers in the way of free flow of media products and free movement of media persons across the frontiers in the SAARC region. SAFMA had lobbied for the adoption of its protocol by the 11th SAARC Summit. Now it has again planned a media gathering before the 12th SAARC Summit to persuade the member countries to adopt its protocol for free flow of information in the region.

The regional executive board also decided to hold the Third Free Media Conference in Dhaka in early March, 2003, that will focus on 'Media and democracy'. More than 200 leading media persons will participate in this one of the largest meetings in the region. 35 senior journalists from India, 30 from Pakistan, 20 from Nepal and 15 from Sri Lanka will participate. The board also decided to jointly produce a South Asian Media Net, an independent web site and a quarterly magazine. An India-Pakistan Moot of parliamentarians and journalists will also be organized by SAFMA next year.

Addressing the board meeting, Mr Imtiaz Alam, Secretary General of SAFMA, expressed his deep concern over the restrictions on media in some of the countries of the region and demanded the release of journalists being held in Nepal. He, especially, demanded the release of Mr. Iftikhar Gilani in India.

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