Saturday September 3, 2016
Kabul (BNA) The supervision commission on access to information in cooperation with UNESCO and other civil society entities has launched a one month campaign in Kabul to strengthen and promote the culture of access to information.
Sayed Ekram Afzali, head of the commission stated that in the next one month, to promote the culture of access to information, a throughout campaign will be conducted across the country. Different programs are expected to be done within a month such as, awareness programs in ministries and educational programs for media to mark International Day on Access to Information that is coincided with Sep. 28, he further said. The main message of the programs is that access to information is everyone’s right and the government is responsible to work on it and based on people demand, put the information in their access. The information should be precautionary put in the people access. This is an international standard and the government is responsible to fulfill it.
Exclusion and prohibition are exception, but the regulation is access to information and we hope the concerned organs properly perform their duty in the respect. The commission asks all government institutions to specify their media in-charges in any section and put the necessary information to people access and those don’t will be legally treated. This is not the first time that many of the media as partner showed readiness and have come to take part in the campaign however, they have not been sponsored. The media presence is very important in the campaign, particularly the journalists who are the real owners of information. It is stressed that any citizen should know about the government plans, because the government plans are connected to people lives.
Based on members of the commission, this is the first time that such a day is marked in Afghanistan, as the commission has conducted a campaign to strengthen and promote culture of access to information one month earlier. This is while that according to the commission in-charges, if the access to information situation gets continued as like as it is, the people will face problems, thus, there should not be any distance created between people and the government. Media are one of the important tools in offering transparent information, and in democrat system the governments are obliged to protect them. Therefore, the related officials should pay serious attention in this regard.
Lailuma Noori
