(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a WiPC, International PEN press release: INTERNATIONAL PRESS FREEDOM DAY 3 May 2002 Today over seventy writers and journalists are incarcerated in prisons around the world serving sentences several years long. Most are accused only for practising their rights to freedom of expression and association. Many are held in countries […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a WiPC, International PEN press release:
INTERNATIONAL PRESS FREEDOM DAY
3 May 2002
Today over seventy writers and journalists are incarcerated in prisons around the world serving sentences several years long. Most are accused only for practising their rights to freedom of expression and association. Many are held in countries that have signed international human rights agreements that specifically protect the right to freedom of expression. International PEN is marking 3 May World Press Freedom Day by highlighting the plight of these long-term detainees, many of whom would be forgotten if not for the attention of the international human rights community.
PEN, the world association of writers that represents members in 95 countries, aims to promote the role of literature as a means of building understanding between nations and cultures. Its Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) co-ordinates the campaign on behalf of those detained for the expression of their opinions in writing. It has over 700 cases of imprisonment, harassment, judicial hearings, attacks, and, sadly, even killings of writers and journalists on its records at any time. Over 70 are serving terms of imprisonment of three years or more in countries including China, Cuba, Cameroon, Peru, Vietnam, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
On 3 May, International PEN is focusing on three cases: the longest serving, that of Win Tin held in Burma since 1989; the longest sentence, a life term being served by the Chinese editor Wu Shishen; and the most recent to be sentenced to a long goal term, George Baongla, a Cameroon journalist sentenced to five years in January this year.
Win Tin – Myanmar (Burma)
In 1988, nationwide demonstrations were staged across Burma where students, workers and monks called for more freedom and democracy. These were harshly suppressed by the Burmese authorities, leading to mass arrests over the next few years. In July 1989 at the height of the crackdown, Win Tin, a writer, journalist and close colleague of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was himself arrested. Despite his age, now over 70, and poor health, he remains detained over 12 years later. Several other writers were also detained in 1989 but none remain detained. The past two years has seen a series of amnesties of NLD prisoners following confidential negotiations between Aung San Suu Kyi, herself still under virtual house arrest, and the authorities. Yet Win Tin remains in jail.
Win Tin, former Hanthawati newspaper editor, Secretary of the Executive Council of the NLD and Vice-President of the Burmese Writer’s Association, was active in pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and a key adviser to the National League for Democracy’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He was arrested on 4 July 1989 and first sentenced to three years in prison for ‘harbouring an offender for whom a warrant had been issued’. He was later given an additional 10 years for his supposed pro-Communist sympathies, accusing him of a range of offences including incitement to violence, contact with insurgent organisations, obtaining financial support from a foreign embassy and obtaining weapons. However it is widely believed that he is being penalised for his activities for the NLD and his close relations with Aung San Suu Kyi. (Win Tin was accused of being her “puppet master”). She herself writes of Win Tin as “A man of courage and integrity, Win Tin would not be intimidated and forced into making false confessions [against the NLD]”. While in prison, Win Tin took on the role of negotiator between the prison guards and inmates. In 1996 he was among 26 prisoners to be prosecuted in a prison trial for involvement in an underground prisoner’s network, producing a magazine and possessing radios. He was given another seven-year sentence.
Now aged 72, Win Tin is not due for release until 2009. He is in extremely poor health and said to be frail. In March this year, he was transferred to a hospital for treatment for a hernia. It is feared his return to prison will exacerbate long standing health problems, including spondylitis (inflammation of the vertebra), high blood pressure and diabetes.
Urgent calls for Win Tin’s release should be sent to:
Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt
Secretary 1 State Peace and Development Council
c/o Director of Defence Services Intelligence
Ministry of Defence
Signal Pagoda Road
Dagon Post Office
Yangon
Union of Myanmar
Fax: +95 1 229 50
Wu Shishen, China
Life sentences, once commonly passed against dissident writers, have rarely been applied in recent years, even in the most authoritarian of states. In fact, International PEN has on its record only one writer facing the rest of his life in jail Chinese journalist Wu Shishen. Arrested in October 1992 while working as sub-editor of the domestic news department of the New China News Agency (Xinhua), he was accused and subsequently convicted of “selling state secrets”. His “crime” was to provide to a Hong Kong journalist an advance copy of a speech to be delivered by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Jiang Zemin to the opening of the CCP’s congress. The Hong Kong Express published the speech a week before it was delivered to congress. The sub-editor of China Health Education News, Ma Tao, thought to be Wu’s wife, was also arrested and served a six-year sentence for her part in the affair.
Even for China, which has a number of writers detained for significant periods, this sentence is especially harsh. One of the main arguments against him was that he accepted US$ 700 payment from the Hong Kong newspaper in exchange for the speech. This could be said to justify a conviction on bribery or corruption, but not such a harsh sentence. Some have speculated that the timing of the publication was a personal embarrassment to Jiang Zemin. The day before his speech was published in the Hong Kong Express, he had reportedly told an internal meeting that the CCP congress would be proof of how far they could test the confidentiality of their work. A Hong Kong South China Morning Post reported that the original sentence of 10 years suggested by the presiding judge had been over-turned by direct intervention by Jiang Zemin for a harsher fine, which gives some credence to this suggestion. Amnesty International has added its concerns that the imprisonment of Wu is politically motivated. The United Nation’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions declared in 1996 that it considered Wu’s imprisonment to be an arbitrary restriction on his right to freedom of expression.
Whatever the truth behind the charges, what is clear is that Wu Shishen is serving an overly heavy sentence for a misdemeanour that in other countries would have carried a much lighter penalty. Today, almost ten years later, International PEN urges the Chinese authorities to reconsider the sentence against Wu Shishen and order his release.
Appeals should be sent to:
His Excellency Jiang Zemin
State Council
Beijing
100032, P.R.China.
Fax: +86 10 6512 5810
Georges Baongla – Cameroon
Since the late 90s, Cameroon had not been a country that PEN had great concerns about. Occasional reports of brief detentions, short prison terms and harassment of journalists had been passed on to PEN which had issued appeals to the authorities calling for the dropping of charges or an end to harassment. So it came as some surprise to learn of the five-year sentence passed against journalist Georges Baongla earlier this year.
Georges Baongla, the publication director of the weekly Le Démenti, was first arrested on 22 August 2001 for “publication of false news”. The brief detention was linked with a Le Démenti article that implicated the Minister of the Economy and Finances in an embezzlement case. Baongla was re-arrested at his home on 9 January 2002. Two days later he appeared before a judge and was transferred to Nkondengui central prison in the capital Yaoundé. It transpired that he had been tried in absentia in October 2001 and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 17 million CFA francs. The journalist had been found guilty of an alleged extortion of ten million CFA francs from an official at the Ministry of the Economy and Finances, a charge bearing relation to “publication of false news”. According to the editorial board of Le Démenti, the charges are baseless.
This case brings up a number of questions about fair trial practice. Baongla was apparently not informed of the trial, let alone granted the right to be present and defend himself. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cameroon is a party, guarantees the right to a fair and public hearing and to be “tried in [the defendant’s] presence or through legal assistance of [the defendant’s] own choosing”.
There are concerns that Baongla may be being penalised for his criticism of the authorities. The Le Démenti editors claim that Baongla has been persecuted on account of a series of articles in the newspaper denouncing financial malpractice by the Minister of the Economy and Finances.
While not wishing to comment on the veracity of the charges against Baongla, it is apparent that due process has not been followed and that a lengthy prison term has been passed following doubtful procedures. International PEN calls upon the Cameroonian authorities to explain the apparent lack of due process in Georges Baongla’s trial. PEN also calls for the immediate release of the publication director pending a review of the trial proceedings.
Appeals (in English or French) can be sent to:
S. E. Paul Biya
Président de la République
Palais de l’Unité
1000
Yaoundé
Cameroon
Fax: +237 222 0870
