History of the IPI (1990-1999)
The 90s started on a promising note for the media: in 1990 Japanese TV reported Toyohiro Akiyama spent 7 days at the space station Mir as the first journalist in space.
The dawn of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe became a central topic for IPI in the early 1990s.
Milan Simecka, philosopher and essayist and one of the most well-known signatories of the dissident movement, Charter 77, after the Velvet revolution, became the first recipient of new IPI Freedom Award in 1991.
Nelson Mandela participated in the 1991 Kyoto General Assembly, highlighting that it was the press that helped to free him after three decades in prison.
IPI headquarters moved from London to Vienna in 1992. Moving to Central Europe, IPI was now closer to new-born democracies, supporting the media in these countries and assisting their transformation.
IPI developed the IPI Press Freedom Fund (1995) in order to sponsor journalists who wish to become members, but cannot afford to pay the membership fee or attend IPI events.
The Middle East peace process was also on IPI's agenda as IPI hosted critical evaluations of the peace process from both the Israeli and the Palestinian points of view at the 1996 World Congress in Jerusalem.
The independent Russian television channel, NTV, was the first recipient of the Free Media Pioneer Award, a new award established by IPI and Freedom Forum in 1996.
The first IPI web site was launched (see the concept of the IPI home page presented at the Board Meeting in 1999).
IPI started its Death Watch project in 1999.
The IPI World Congresses of this decade were held in Bordeaux (1990), Kyoto (1991), Budapest (1992), Venice (1993), Cape Town (1994), Seoul (1995), Jerusalem (1996), Granada (1997), Moscow (1998), and Taipei (1999).
Sources: IPI Reports and IPI photo archive.
•1950-1959 •1960-1969 •1970-1979 •1980-1989 •2000-2009
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The Nineties – historical events:
• Hubble telescope launched into space
• Collapse of the Soviet Union
• Nelson Mandela freed
• Operation Desert Storm
• South Africa repeals Apartheid laws
• Official end of the Cold War
• Use of the internet grows exponentially
• Rwandan genocide begins
• Pathfinder sends back images of Mars
• The Yugoslav Wars and the breakup of Yugoslavia
• Princess Diana dies in car crash
www.history1900s.about.comand Wikipedia.
