FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30152, 8 June 1963, Page 18

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Restriction In America

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, June 6

Freedom of expression did not exist in four countries of the Western Hemisphere, the Inter-American Press Association said today when it named Cuba. Haiti, Paraguay and Bolivia in a statement marking its observance of June 7 as “Freedom of the Press Day.”

The statement, by the Association's president. Mr R O’Farrill, of Mexico City, said:

"It is our earnest hope that peoples of those four countries will soon recover their inherent right to exercise such freedom. "Cuba has become the strongest political weapon being used by Russia against the Americas, where the Communists seek to subvert governments and destroy all freedom of the prqss . . “Let us remember that a well-informed public is a bet-ter-armed public. We must intensify our efltorts to inform and to guide our public throughout this hemisphere aggressively to meet the menace of insidious Communist and other totalitarian infiltration in all its forms.

"Therefore, all newspapers in the Americas must strive tirelessly to preserve our hard-won human rights. Above all. we must redouble our efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace with responsible freedom. If we fail to win that kind of peace, the only alternative may be the destruction of mankind in a thermonuclear holocaust.”