(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair: The Right Honourable Tony Blair MP Prime Minister 10 Downing Street London, United Kingdom C/o Cabinet Office E-mail: gus.macdonald@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk Mr Alistair Frazer, CB, QC Director of Public Prosecutions Royal Courts of Justice Chichester St Belfast County Antrim BT1 3NX The Rt […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair:
The Right Honourable Tony Blair MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London, United Kingdom
C/o Cabinet Office
E-mail: gus.macdonald@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk
Mr Alistair Frazer, CB, QC
Director of Public Prosecutions
Royal Courts of Justice
Chichester St
Belfast County Antrim
BT1 3NX
The Rt Hon Lord Goldsmith QC
Attorney General
Attorney General’s Chambers
9 Buckingham Gate
LONDON
SW1E 6JP
Chief Constable Hugh Orde OBE
Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland
E-mail: press@psni.police.uk
16 May 2003
Dear Prime Minister,
We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries, to express our serious concern at the arrest of journalists Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston and our belief that police actions in this case constitute an attack on press freedom in the United Kingdom.
According to reports, on the evening of 30 April armed police officers arrived at the home of Ms Johnston and her husband Mr Clarke, co-authors of an unofficial biography of Sinn Féin leader Martin McGuinness MP, and searched the house. They took away four computers and a large number of documents during the five-hour search. The police also raided the Belfast office of the Sunday Times, of which Mr Clarke is Northern Ireland editor, declining Mr Clarke’s offer of a key and instead breaking down the door, again confiscating documents.
Mr Clarke and Ms Johnston were arrested under the Official Secrets Act in the early hours of 1 May and taken to the police interrogation centre at Antrim. They were each interviewed four or five times in the presence of their lawyers before being released on police bail after almost 24 hours in custody. No charges have yet been brought.
The arrests followed the publication in The Times and Irish News of excerpts of transcripts of tape recordings of four telephone calls in 1999 and 2001 between senior political figures, including Martin McGuinness MP, Jonathan Powell (chief of staff to the Prime Minister), Mo Mowlam MP (at that time Secretary of State for Northern Ireland) and Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams MP. The tape recordings were allegedly made by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) at the request of the secret intelligence service, MI5.
While the content of the disclosures – the publication of phone-tapped conversations – may have been embarrassing to the government, it in no way posed a threat to national security. To pursue journalists under the Official Secrets Act for revealing embarrassing information gained by clandestine operations of the security services is unjustified and clearly against the public interest.
The actions of the PSNI were clearly disproportionate and intimidatory. The raid by armed officers on the home of two journalists after dark is an excessive response to any offence that might have been committed. As there was no risk that Mr Clarke and Ms Johnston might seek to evade the police and the alleged purpose of the raid was to obtain evidence of supposed breaches of the Official Secrets Act, the issuing of a production order for specific documents and the making of an appointment to attend a police station would surely have been an appropriate course of action. Similarly, the arrest in a night-time raid on the home of a retired police officer accused of providing information to Mr Clarke and Ms Johnston appears unreasonably heavy-handed.
We are also concerned that much of the material seized by the police had no relevance to the current enquiry. The confiscation and copying of large amounts of extraneous material can only be seen as a ‘fishing trip’ by the police, a practice that threatens the confidentiality – and security – of Mr Clarke’s and Ms Johnston’s sources in this and other matters. Such police behaviour acts as a deterrent to those who might report official wrongdoing to the press, and is an attack on public accountability and, ultimately, democracy.
Given the PSNI’s disproportionately heavy-handed behaviour, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the police were ‘punishing’ Mr Clarke and Ms Johnston for embarrassing the government, while at the same time sending a clear warning to other investigative journalists and would-be whistle-blowers.
We respectfully call on you to do everything possible to ensure that all charges against Mr Clarke and Ms Johnston are immediately dropped and that a thorough investigation into the conduct of the PSNI is carried out and made public. We urge you to take all steps necessary to ensure that the basic principles of press freedom are upheld throughout the United Kingdom so that journalists are able to carry out their profession free from intimidation.
We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Yours sincerely,
Seok Hyun Hong
President
World Association of Newspapers
Gloria Brown Anderson
President
World Editors Forum
cc : Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations
Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mr Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General, UNESCO
The Right Honourable Paul Murphy MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
