World Press Freedom Day is celebrated on 3 May. It is a day to honour the individual journalists who have risked their lives in helping vindicate the right to a free press in their country. It is a day to celebrate progress made in securing recognition to the right to a free press, which is inextricably connected with other rights such as free speech and democratic governance. It is also a day to galvanize civil society to more actively form coalitions and apply needed pressure to support reform.

World Press Freedom Day is an especially important day in Africa inasmuch as the continent is still fighting to secure and strengthen freedom of the press. Journalists working in inimical climates continue to be repressed, harassed, tortured, and even killed. And unjust and ambiguous laws have been promulgated in many countries that hinder the development of a professional and representative press.

The theme of the World Press Freedom Day initiative is "The Olympic Challenge: Free the Press in China!" and the campaign is dedicated to holding Chinese authorities to the pledges they made in their successful Olympic bid to allow greater press freedom.

Despite the promises of reform made ahead of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities have intensified their crackdown on journalists and others who seek to exercise their right to freedom of _expression. With at least 30 journalists and 50 cyber-dissidents in prison, China is the world's largest jailer of journalists.

Chinese journalists continue to face censorship and repression and authoritarian laws, including subversion, disseminating state secrets and spying, are used by the government to control and restrict newsgathering and information and to jail journalists.

Foreign journalists now reporting from China are regularly harassed and even expelled, as was the case during the March 2008 events in Tibet. This violates the Organising Committee for the Beijing Olympic Games pledge that foreign media would have "complete freedom to report when they come to China."

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