(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: **For background information, see IFEX alerts of 23 June, 25 May and 10 February 1998 (Firouzi case), 13 August 1998, 9 October 1997, 17 April and 10 January 1996 (U Win Tin case), 2 March and 18 February 1998 and 28 May 1997 (Besikci case), 29 […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
**For background information, see IFEX alerts of 23 June, 25 May and 10
February 1998 (Firouzi case), 13 August 1998, 9 October 1997, 17 April and
10 January 1996 (U Win Tin case), 2 March and 18 February 1998 and 28 May
1997 (Besikci case), 29 and 10 September 1998 and 11 October 1995 (Nayyouf
case)**
Zürich, Switzerland, 15 June 1999
For immediate release
Imprisonments a “deep blemish” to Iran, Burma, Turkey
The World Association of Newspapers has written to the leaders of Iran,
Burma and Turkey asking them to free journalists who are in danger of dying
in prison.
The letters, signed by WAN President Bengt Braun, were send to Presidents
Seyed Mohammad Khatami of Iran, Suleyman Demirel of Turkey and General Than
Shwe of Burma. The letters asked them to free the journalists and called the
imprisonments a “deep blemish on the international standing” of the three
countries.
Copies of the letters were distributed at WAN’s 52nd World Newspaper
Congress and 6th World Editors Forum in Zürich, Switzerland, where more than
1,100 publishers and editors from 88 countries are meeting this week (13-16
June). The Paris-based organization, which represents 15,000 newspapers
world-wide, has asked its members to join the campaign for the release of
the journalists, both directly and through their own governments.
Iranian journalist Morteza Firouzi, founder and editor-in-chief of the
English-language daily Iran News, was charged with “spying” and “adultery”
in January 1998 and sentenced to death. Although a re-trial was ordered by
Ayatollah Khameini one year ago, he remains in prison and could again be
sentenced to death.
U Win Tin of Burma, a former editor of two newspapers, and a founding member
of the National League of Democracy, has been imprisoned since July 1989. He
had his sentence extended for 5 years in March 1996 for smuggling out
letters describing the state of his prison. He is reported to be close to
death.
Professor Ismail Besikci of Turkey, jailed most recently in 1993, has been
sentenced to up to 90 years in prison and has spent a total of 37 years
behind bars, for writing about the Kurdish situation in the country.
WAN had earlier sent a similar letter to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad,
calling for the release of Nizar Nayyouf, a leading member of the
independent Committee for the Defense of Democratic Freedom and Human Rights
in Syria and editor of its journal. He was sentenced in 1992 to ten years of
forced labour and has been subjected to severe torture. He is now suffering
from cancer, is being held in solitary confinement and is in danger of
dying.
WAN , the global organization for the newspaper industry, defends and
promotes press freedom world-wide. Its membership includes 62 national
newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 93 countries, 17
news agencies and seven regional press groups.
