(WAN/IFEX) – The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) on 21 September 1998 intensified its campaign for the release of jailed Chinese journalist Gao Yu, who will mark five years behind bars on 1st October 1998. **For background, see IFEX alerts and press releases of 30, 22 June, 21, 6 April and 25 March 1998; 20 […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) on 21 September 1998
intensified its campaign for the release of jailed Chinese journalist Gao
Yu, who will mark five years behind bars on 1st October 1998.
**For background, see IFEX alerts and press releases of 30, 22 June, 21, 6
April and 25 March 1998; 20 January 1995; 14 November and 18 October 1994;
and others**
In a letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, WAN urged the Chinese leader
to demonstrate China’s “strength and compassion” by releasing Gao Yu on the
“auspicious date” of 1 October, which also marks the 49th anniversary of the
founding of the People’s Republic. The letter, signed by WAN President Bengt
Braun, noted the recent release of journalists by Vietnam and Nigeria,
“where two governments came to realise that the continued imprisonment of
journalists causes a country far greater harm than granting them liberty.”
The letter urged China to follow the same course. “The continued
imprisonment of Gao Yu remains a clear blemish on the international standing
of China, and one which can only be erased by her release,” said the letter.
WAN, which represents 15,000 newspapers world-wide, also launched a massive
opinion campaign through its members to help win the release of the jailed
journalist. Information about her case, and about the campaign for her
release, was posted on the WAN website (www.fiej.org).
Gao Yu, the 1995 winner of WAN’s Golden Pen of Freedom and the 1997
UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, was arrested on 2 October
1993 — two days before she was to depart for the United States to start a
one-year research fellowship at Columbia University’s Graduate School of
Journalism in New York. She was held incommunicado for several months before
being tried in a closed court in April 1994. On 10 November 1994, following
a series of judicial proceedings in which she had no legal representation,
she was sentenced to six years imprisonment for “leaking state secrets.” The
conviction centered on information about China’s structural reforms in
articles for the pro-Beijing Hong Kong magazine “Mirror Monthly”. The
documents — which Gao Yu had received permission to copy and make public —
were related to speeches by Communist Party leaders that were already public
knowledge (see IFEX alerts).
The WAN campaign follows the release earlier this year of Vietnam’s Doan
Viet Hoat, another Golden Pen of Freedom award winner, and Nigeria’s Chris
Anyanwu, a winner of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO) press freedom prize. In accepting the UNESCO award
earlier this month, Ms Anyanwu said international pressure was instrumental
in winning both her release and the release of Mr Hoat, and the outcome
should encourage others to help free Gao Yu.
WAN, the global association of the newspaper industry, defends and promotes
press freedom. Its membership includes 55 national newspaper publishers
associations, individual newspaper executives in 90 countries, seven
regional press organizations and 17 news agencies world-wide.
