URGENT NEED FOR ELECTION OBSERVATION IN ICELAND

Your Excellency,

I am sorry to have to trouble your office again requesting OSCE observers to ensure fair and honest elections in Iceland. Elections have been announced for 9th May this year.

In 2004 I requested your observation on presidential elections in Iceland in which I was one of the candidates. I was then informed by your Mr. Mitchell that you were refused access by the ministry of Justice in Reykjavik.  Unfortunately this resulted in „soviet style“ presidential elections that year in Iceland due to extensive misuse of the media by the incumbent or his sponsors.  Most independent media in Iceland is owned by one company who have widely misused their position to further their own political agenda. The state media is conrolled by the political klan here in Iceland. I have made several complaints about the misuse of the State television and radio service (RUV) in 2004, 2008 and 2009.  In the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections Dr. Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of the European University Center for Peace Studies, wrote a complaint to RUV after an interview, where he introduced our new ideas for the office of the Icelandic president, was completely distorted by cutting out the essence what he said about my candidacy. In his complaint letter to RUV Mr. Fisher said: „This form of suppressing a free and open dialogue is reminiscent of the campaign in Yugoslavia in 1992, in which the peace candidate Milan Panic was prevented from presenting his peace platform to the voters, because the media were completely controlled by supporters of sitting President Slobodan Milosevic “

The host of the program (Kastljos), the person responsible at RUV for this interview, is now heading Framsoknarflokkurinn in the upcoming elections, a political party that I have publicly opposed for many years due to their extreme misuse of power and fraudulent dealings.

My organization, Lydraedishreyfingin, will participate in the upcoming parliament elections. We are in urgent need of OSCE observers to be sent to Reykjavik WITH EXTREME URGENCY in order to ensure our proper and equal access to the media here. The Icelandic economy and political system has collapsed as a result of fraud over a decade, including severe misuse of state controlled and independent media in the run-up to previous elections.  We appeal to you to ensure our proper access to introduce our political agenda to the Icelandic people. Our complaints to government regulators over recent misuse of RUV have not been answered.

At last I draw your attention to the fact that “Reporters without borders” listed Iceland as No. 1 for free press in the world on their website www.rsf.org.  I was so astonished by this that I contacted this organization and was told by the researcher that he got “no replies to emails from Iceland” and that is why they elected Iceland as the No. 1 free press country in the world!  The researcher had not investigated any facts surrounding the ownership and control of our media!

Yours Sincerely,

Lýðræðishreyfingin

Sent til: 

Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights ,Aleje Ujazdowskie 19, 00-557 Warsaw, Poland.

Afrit:

Dóms og kirkjumálaráðuneytið, Útvarpsréttarnefnd, Menntamálaráðherra,

Menntamálanefnd Alþingis, Íslandsdeild þings Öryggis- og samvinnustofnunar Evrópu, Umboðsmaður Alþingis, Blaðamannafélag Íslands, Reporters Without Borders, Alþingismenn.

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Athugasemdir

[ásdís (IP-tala skráð) 27.1.2009 kl. 21:17]

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