World Press Freedom Day will be observed in the country as elsewhere across the world today with a call for strengthening efforts to ensure freedom of press and expression.

Throughout the world, May 3 serves as an occasion to inform the public of violations of rights to freedom of expression and as a reminder that many journalists brave death or jail to bring people their daily news.

The potential of media in fostering dialogue, mutual understanding and reconciliation is the topic of UNESCO World Press Freedom Day 2009.

As the only UN agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press, UNESCO has placed mutual understanding, and dialogue through media at the core of its mission.

President of Commonwealth Journalists' Association (CJA) Hassan Shahriar in a statement on the occasion said: "A free press and freedom of speech constitute the strongest pillars of a democracy."

The CJA president said people from all walks of life, religions, and political stripes are free to disseminate ideas, thoughts and information; they are free to report on and publish and broadcast supporting or dissenting views of the government of the day; they are free to stroll the streets and participate in forums without fear of retribution.

About the press freedom in commonwealth countries, Shahriar said the countries have press freedom and freedom of speech as enshrined in their constitutions. But in too many Commonwealth countries, despotic governments, thugs, tribal factions and others seek to suppress and muzzle the press.

In his message, Director-General of UNESCO Koïchiro Matsuura said:

"We must strengthen our efforts to build a media that is critical of inherited assumptions yet tolerant of alternative perspectives; a media that brings competing narratives into a shared story of interdependence; a media that responds to diversity through dialogue."

At this year's conference and celebrations, UNESCO invites participants to explore the enormous potential of media to serve as a platform for dialogue and a vehicle for understanding.

Late Sri Lankan journalist and editor of the Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was assassinated on 8 January this year, has been named laureate of the 2009 UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize.