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Dalton1
3485 Posts |
 Posted - 03 May 2009 : 03:20:30
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Reporters Without Borders / Reporters sans frontičres
http://www.rsf.org
3 May 2009
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY
WHEN GOVERNMENTS TAKE JOURNALISTS HOSTAGE
In the run-up to World Press Freedom Day on 3 May, Reporters Without Borders is campaigning for the release of three women journalists who have been “taken hostage” by governments.
Four members of Reporters Without Borders have been on hunger strike since 28 April in support of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on a charge of spying for the United States.
Saberi has herself been on hunger strike since 21 April in protest against her conviction on a trumped-up charge. Her life is in danger. Reporters Without Borders is taking over her hunger strike so that she does not have to continue it herself. Beginning on 3 May, similar protests are going to be staged in Canada, the United States, Britain, Belgium and Spain.
There is also an urgent need to obtain the release of two American journalists employed by California-based Current TV, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who have been held in Pyongyang since 17 March.
During a special evening event dedicated to the subject of North Korea which Reporters Without Borders organised in Paris on 27 April, the French secretary of state for foreign affairs and human rights, Rama Yade, offered her support for human rights organisations campaigning for their release.
The detention of Saberi, Lee and Ling on arbitrary charges demonstrates more than ever the importance of World Press Freedom Day, which we will be celebrating on 3 May. We appeal to the Iranian and North Korean authorities to free these three women without delay.
Saberi, Lee and Ling are professional journalists who are neither spies nor criminals. Through them, press freedom and the right to report the news freely are being taken hostage by Iran and North Korea.
More information about the Reporters Without Borders protests on behalf of Roxana Saberi:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=30949
GAMBIA - PRESS FREEDOM
Press freedom is stifled year after year by an intolerant and unpredictable government. The work of the privately owned media is hobbled by an extremely threatening climate, bolstered by laws of defamation and against “publishing false news” that are among the most draconian in West Africa.
Despite the existence of a civilian government, headed by young president, Yahya Jammeh, the country is the reserve of a small clique of frequently irrational soldiers, who imprison, torture and terrorise often randomly, those who dare to clash with the head of state or his friends.
The murder of the country’s most prominent journalist, editor of the weekly The Point, Deyda Hydara, on 16 December 2004, marked the end of a period when a well organised and rigorous private press could still stand firm against a government which did not hide its hostility towards it. Hydara was formerly president of the journalists’ union, correspondent for Reporters Without Borders and AFP, the doyen of the country’s journalists and a perceptive editorialist, pointing out the erring ways of the inexperienced and mystic young president. At the time he was killed, within a stone’s throw of a police barracks, Hydara was being permanently watched by the dreaded National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the head of state’s all-powerful intelligence service. Since his death, almost all those who were a thorn in the president’s side have fallen into step or have left the country. Apart from The Point, which is more or less protected by the aura of its deceased editor, most newspapers that tried to get a different voice heard from that of the pro-government Daily Observer have been illegally closed.
One imprisoned journalist, “Chief” Ebrima Manneh, disappeared without trace into the sinister Mile Two prison on the Banjul sea front. And the authorities have always denied holding him, despite numerous reports from prisoners and eye witnesses to the contrary.
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Ambroise PIERRE
Bureau Afrique / Africa Desk
Reporters sans frontičres / Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris, France
Tel : (33) 1 44 83 84 76
Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51
Email : afrique@rsf.org / africa@rsf.org
Web : www.rsf.org
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Edited by - Dalton1 on 03 May 2009 03:22:53 |
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