(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Paris, 16 March 2001 Press Groups Plan Basque Mission, Will Meet Aznar The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum are sending a delegation to Spain next week to explore threats faced by the media from Basque separatist organisations. The mission, led by the WAN […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Paris, 16 March 2001
Press Groups Plan Basque Mission, Will Meet Aznar
The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum are sending a delegation to Spain next week to explore threats faced by the media from Basque separatist organisations.
The mission, led by the WAN President, Roger Parkinson, will begin in Madrid on Tuesday with a meeting with Prime Minister José Maria Aznar. The delegation will go to Bilbao and San Sebastian on Wednesday and Thursday to meet both media leaders and representatives of political parties.
The Basque terrorist group ETA last year killed one of the leading journalists in the Basque region, José Luis Lopez de la Calle of El Mundo. It is also responsible for several attempted murders including: that of Carlos Herrera, a reporter with Spanish National Public Radio, who received a packet bomb; Jesús María Zuloaga, a journalist with the Madrid daily La Razon, who received a letter-bomb; and Aurora Intxausti, the San Sebastian correspondent of El Pais, and her husband, Juan Palomo, a journalist with Antena 3 TV, by placing a bomb outside their apartment.
“The violence and threats against journalists and media enterprises continue to increase,” said Timothy Balding, the Director General of WAN. “In January of this year it was revealed that an ETA unit in Barcelona had also tried to kill Luis del Olmo, the renowned radio journalist; last week, the offices of El Correo in Bilbao were hit by a ‘rain’ of Molotov cocktails; documentation obtained by the police when they arrested the alleged assassin of Lopez de la Calle showed that the ETA had plans to blow up the El Diario Vasco newspaper in Bilbao.
“The purposes of our mission will include: to show solidarity with our Spanish colleagues as attempts to intimidate and attack them continue; to explore allegations that the declarations of some Basque nationalist leaders are inciting or justifying violence against the media; and to discuss with editors of Basque nationalist newspapers their positions on attacks against other media.”
In addition to Prime Minister Aznar, the group’s confirmed schedule includes meetings with Mr Xabier Arzalluz, leader of the Basque Nationalist Party P.N.V., with Ms Begoña Errazti, President of the Eusko Alkartasuna nationalist party, and the Basque leaders of the Socialist and ruling Popular Party, Nicolas Redondo and Carlos Iturgaiz.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 17,000 newspapers; its membership includes 67 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 93 countries, 17 news agencies and eight regional and world-wide press groups. The WEF is the division of WAN for editorial executives.
