February 13 is World Radio Day (WRD), a celebration of community radio as a medium of primary importance. This Day aims to promote gender equality on the air, access to information, the development of independent media, the safety of journalists and freedom of expression. For this fifth edition, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) and all the partners in the public, commercial and community media, invite you to celebrate and emphasize the importance of radio around the theme "Radio in Times of Emergency and Disaster".
From January 16-18, 2016, Cultural Survival in partnership with Sobrevivencia Cultural, AMARC, Voces Indigenas Panama, and Fundacion Comunicandonos will host the first ever Central American Indigenous Community Radio Conference in Narganá, Comarca Guna Yala, Panamá. The conference will gather over 40 Indigenous community radio volunteers from all over Central America to discuss and share their experience with community media in their respective countries. The conference also has the goal of creating a Central American Indigenous community radio network in which community stations will mutually support each other in raising awareness about their work and fighting for the democratization of community media in the region.
On the anniversary of the brutal attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo we, the undersigned, reaffirm our commitment to the defense of the right to freedom of expression, even when that right is being used to express views that some may consider offensive. The Charlie Hebdo attack, which left 11 dead and 12 wounded, was a horrific reminder of the violence to which journalists, artists and other critical voices are subjected in a global atmosphere marked by increasing intolerance of dissent. The killings inaugurated a year that has proved especially challenging for proponents of freedom of opinion.