(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release: Thursday 14 October: Eighty European media campaign for journalists jailed worldwide About 80 newspapers, radio stations and television channels launched an appeal today (14 October) on behalf of journalists currently in prison in eight countries: Burma, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Syria and […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release:
Thursday 14 October: Eighty European media campaign for journalists jailed
worldwide
About 80 newspapers, radio stations and television channels launched an
appeal today (14 October) on behalf of journalists currently in prison in
eight countries: Burma, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Rwanda, Syria and Vietnam. The operation has been coordinated by Reporters
Sans Frontières, which organises sponsorship of jailed journalists by the
various media.
Burmese journalist San San Nweh, arrested in August 1994 and sentenced to
ten years in jail for “publishing information harmful to the state”, has
been sponsored for five years. She is being held at Insein prison, Rangoon,
where ill-treatment and torture are common. Chinese journalist Liu
Jingsheng, who is only scheduled for release in 2007, has been sponsored for
the past three years. A contributor to the underground magazine Freedom
Forum, he is serving a 15-year sentence. His wife and daughter have been
unable to visit him since his arrest in 1992. Nizar Nayyouf, a Syrian
journalist who won the Reporters Sans Frontières – Fondation de France prize
in 1998, was sentenced to ten years’ hard labour in 1992. His life is in
danger because the authorities are refusing to allow him treatment for
leukaemia. He is also suffering from paralysis because of the torture
inflicted on him in jail. Several media have been supporting Nayyouf for six
years. A total of 77 journalists are currently imprisoned worldwide. Another
22 have been killed in the course of their work since the start of the year.
“You must be able to spare three minutes to help a journalist who has been
jailed for ten years”. That is the message devised by the Alice advertising
agency and selected by Reporters Sans Frontières for this year’s
“Sponsorship Day”. The slogan, which is tailored to suit the case of each
journalist, is followed by the address of Reporters Sans Frontières’ web
site (www.rsf.fr), where visitors can sign online petitions on behalf of the
prisoners. As well as France, the campaign is being conducted in Belgium,
Spain, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.
The 50 newspapers taking part in the campaign will launch appeals urging
their readers to sign petitions on behalf of the journalists they are
sponsoring. The campaign will also take the form of radio advertisements
calling on listeners to take action to help imprisoned journalists.
“The idea is to make sure that journalists whose only crime was trying to do
their work freely are not forgotten”, a Reporters Sans Frontières spokesman
said. “Sponsoring a journalist is a way of preventing silence from becoming
a second prison, a refusal to let them sink into oblivion.”
Since the start of Reporters Sans Frontières’ work on behalf of jailed
journalists in 1989, more than half of the 100 or so sponsored have regained
their freedom. Sponsorship is not the only reason, but it is often a help.
“When I was in prison, I knew that I was not alone”, said Cuban journalist
Lorenzo Paez Nuñez after his release in January 1999. “I would like to thank
you all. I want you to know how important that was for me.” Christina
Anyanwu, editor of The Sunday Magazine in Nigeria, was released from jail on
16 June 1998. During a visit to Paris, she expressed her gratitude to “all
those who kept up pressure on the Nigerian government to secure my release.”
