(IPI/IFEX) – IPI is condemning the detention of two Spanish television correspondents and a Dutch freelance photographer in Kosovo. **Updates IFEX alert of 6 April 1999**
(IPI/IFEX) – IPI is condemning the detention of two Spanish television
correspondents and a Dutch freelance photographer in Kosovo.
**Updates IFEX alert of 6 April 1999**
<P.
IPI was informed that Jon Sistiaga Escudero and Bernabe Dominguez Lopez of
Telecinco, and Arie Kievit of the Rotterdam daily "Algemeen Dagblad", were
detained by Serbian police on Friday, 2 April 1999, when they unwittingly
crossed the border with Macedonia, where they were filming refugees arriving
by train from Kosovo.
According to IPI’s sources, the journalists were held by police for twenty
four hours before being to taken to the Grand Hotel in Pristina. IPI
understands that one of the Telecinco journalists, Sistiaga, appeared on
Serbian television and said that all three were being treated well and were
allowed to walk around Pristina. He also urged for an end to NATO air
strikes, which he called “a crime against civilians.”
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the President:
television
gross
violation of everyone’s right to “seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” as guaranteed by
Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
unconditionally and that journalists covering events in Yugoslavia are
allowed to exercise their profession without further obstruction
Appeals To
His Excellency Slobodan Milosevic
President of Yugoslavia
Belgrade, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Fax: +381 11 367 25 48
e-mail: slobodan.milosevic@gov.yu
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
