Human Rights Medal recipient Peter Greste has cautioned against any measures that would erode press freedom in Australia.
The award-winning Al Jazeera correspondent was arrested in Egypt in December 2013 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for news reporting that was claimed to be “damaging to national security”. He spent 400 days behind bars before being deported to Australia in February 2015.
In accepting the Human Rights Medal, Greste said his imprisonment caused many Australians to seriously consider the “abstract concepts” of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the rule of law.
“We became a very real, very physical and very tangible example of what happens when you lose those freedoms,” Greste said.
“But there is another reason that Australians took so passionately to our cause, and that’s because they came to see what we stood for as something worth protecting.”
Greste cautioned against national security measures that would challenge freedom of speech.
“The kind of thinking that put us in prison in Egypt – that’s using national security as an excuse to lock up a bunch of journalists because they were reporting from across the political spectrum ¬– is I think the road we are in danger of moving down in our own country, particularly in the rush to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks,” he said.
“I’m not suggesting we are moving towards any kind of police state, but late last year and early this year the Government passed three tranches of legislation aimed at tightening up security: Section 35P of the ASIO Act, the Foreign Fighters Bill and the Data Retention Bill.
“The government says they have nothing to do with press freedom or freedom of speech, and that may not be their intent, but each in their own way has a very tangible impact on the work that journalists do and it eats away at the ability of the press to fulfil its watchdog role and defend human rights more broadly.”
Greste called on Australians to keep alive the debate over freedom of speech.
“This is no small matter if you consider the diverse, vibrant and at times downright raucous free press is one of the main reasons that our country has been one of the most stable, prosperous and peaceful countries on the planet,” he said.
A record-breaking crowd of more than 500 people attended the annual awards, hosted by the Australian Human Rights Commission at The Westin Sydney to mark International Human Rights Day.
Commission President, Professor Gillian Triggs, delivered the keynote speech, The future of human rights in Australia, describing 2015 as "the year of living dangerously".
The 2015 Human Rights Awards were streamed live on YouTube
