Panel to Feature Mayor Walsh, Kurkjian and Suarez, among Others
BOSTON — The 2014 Najarian Endowed Lecture on Human Rights at Faneuil Hall will be held on Thursday, October 23, at 7:30 p.m. This year’s topic is “Truth to Action: Media Freedom, Protecting Human Rights Globally.”
A reception follows to continue the discussion with the speakers, lecture leadership and participating organizations.
Free and open to the public, the annual lecture, endowed by K. George and Carolann S. Najarian, MD, is a public program of the Armenian Heritage Foundation, sponsor of Armenian Heritage Park on Boston’s Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.
This year’s lecture addresses the critical importance of freedom of the press in upholding Human Rights across the world. The focus is both about the journalists who cover the host of issues affecting human rights as well as the challenges inherent in that effort and in many instances the journalists’ safety and security. Whether on the local or international level, it is reporters who protect and preserve human rights by exposing corruption, abuses to public safety, health, the environment and championing the well-being of women, children and the disadvantaged. “Everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart ideas without fear and interference,” states Amnesty International. “Yet throughout the world, journalists, bloggers and others face harassment and imprisonment for exercising their right to free speech…Freedom of expression is essential to the attainment of all other rights…and is closely linked to the right to hold opinions and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion…”