[ecrea] Community Media Conference to Highlight Arab Voices

Arabic version available here: http://aswatona.net/?p=2480

Community Media Conference to Highlight Arab Voices

The importance of providing new channels for Arab voices will be the
focus of the second annual Community Media Conference for the Arab
World, Aswatona 2013, to be held in the Egyptian capital Cairo 25-28
February and involving over 100 Arab community broadcasters and
online media activists.

The conference has been organised by Amman-based Community Media
Network and UK-based Community Media Solutions in association with
UNESCO and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters
(AMARC). The event is supported by the Swedish Agency for
International Development and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Daoud Kuttab, director general of Community Media Network says the
conference aims at hearing media experiences from the Arab world,
exchanging ideas and assessing the legal and administrative
environment for community broadcasting: "In the past year we have
helped establish seven community radio stations and we have produced
legal studies on the media laws in various Arab countries."

The conference will bring practitioners and media law activists
together to forge ahead a path for accelerating community
broadcasting in the Arab world. Speakers at the conference will
include case studies on the success of online radio, on the
empowerment of women through local broadcasting in conservative
communities and on new ways to enhance popular participation in communications.

Steve Buckley, managing director of Community Media Solutions says:
"Popular demand for freedom, social justice and political
participation has grown across the Arab world and is finding
expression through new community media initiatives and public
pressure for reform of outdated media laws."

The conference in Cairo follows the first Aswatona conference held in
cooperation with AMARC in the Tunisian capital in March 2012.
Participating radio stations include Horytna Bahri from Alexandria,
Dahriya Radio in Palestine, Sawt Al Aghwar from Jordan, Yemen Times
Radio from Sanaa'a, ANA radio for Syrians in exile, Voice of the
Mines radio from Gafsa, Tunisia and AWAL radio from Libya. Media
practitioners from Algiers, Morocco and Bahrain are among the other
countries participating.

Further information at<http://www.aswatona.net>www.aswatona.net

For interviews call Daoud Kuttab +92795577646

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Steve Buckley, CMSolutions - www.cmso.co.uk
email. (steve /at/ cmso.co.uk) - tw. @stevebuckley
    tel. +441142201426 - skype. steve_buckley
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