FIVE JOURNALISTS HONORED FOR THEIR DEDICATION TO PRESS FREEDOM
USIA
25 November 1998
FIVE JOURNALISTS HONORED FOR THEIR DEDICATION TO PRESS FREEDOM
(Campaign launched to free journalist jailed in Eritrea) (1540)
By Judy Aita
USIA Staff Correspondent
NEW YORK -- Prominent national and international journalists and media
representatives gathered in New York November 24 to honor their
colleagues from Niger, Eritrea, Panama, Indonesia, and Belarus for
their courage and independence in reporting the news.
Recipients of the eighth annual International Press Freedom Awards
from the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) are Gremah
Boucar, publisher, owner, and director of Radio Anfani in Niger; Ruth
Simon, a correspondent for Agence France Presse who has been
imprisoned in Eritrea for nearly two years; Gustavo Gorriti, an
investigative reporter exiled from Peru who is currently working for
La Prensa in Panama; Goenawan Mohamad, chief editor of the newly
reopened Tempo magazine in Indonesia; and Pavel Sheremet, Minsk bureau
chief for ORT Russian television and editor of Baelarusskaya Delovaya
Gazeta.
Two past recipients who were unable to accept their awards because
they were imprisoned were able to attend this year's ceremony. They
are Chris Anyanwu of Nigeria, a 1997 honoree who was released in June
after more than three years in prison, and Doan Viet Hoat of Vietnam,
a 1993 honoree who was freed in early September after eight years in
prison.
The awards honor journalists who have provided news coverage in the
face of arrest, imprisonment, violence against them and their
families, and threats of death.
CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said that "the courage and
perseverance of these brave practitioners of press freedom despite
continual hardship and harassment set an example for all who value the
right to free expression, a right supported by almost all nations but
practiced by far fewer."
Cooper said that Ruth Simon has been imprisoned for reporting that
during a speech President Isaias Afwerki spoke about Eritrean troops
fighting beside rebels in Sudan.
"The Eritrean government had long denied that there was any
involvement in that conflict. It denied it again after she reported
the president's remarks, and it didn't stop there. The government
detained Ruth Simon. She remains in detention. She has never been
formally charged and there is no trial scheduled or anything of the
kind," Cooper said.
"We have protested her imprisonment vigorously, but so far too no
avail," the CPJ director said. "We are giving her in absentia our 1998
Press Freedom Award for an imprisoned journalist and we are committed
to campaign over the next year to secure her release."
Gremah Boucar, founder of Radio Anfani, Niger's leading private radio
station, "exemplifies the experiences of Africa's few truly
independent radio broadcasters in his refusal to allow government
intimidation and harassment to drive the station permanently off the
air," Cooper said.
"Niger is under military rule and Gremah is, unfortunately, under
constant harassment from the government, trying to shut him down,
silence the radio station," Cooper said at a press conference with
some of the award winners.
She related a horrifying story Boucar told about when he was arrested
and taken to a police station. He was put in a large sack and left on
the floor while the police discussed how they were going to get rid of
him.
"One of the policeman spoke up and said, 'You know, we can't kill him
because when we went to his house to arrest him, everybody saw us --
so if he's murdered they will be able to identify the murderers.' And
that seems to be the one thing that saved Gremah's life," Cooper said.
Radio Anfani was launched during the administration of Niger's first
democratically elected president, Mahamane Ousmane, and quickly became
the nation's primary source of news, providing extensive international
coverage as an affiliate of the Voice of America, the British
Broadcasting Service, and Radio Deutsche Welle, along with a staff
that provided analytical coverage of local politics.
During the 1996 elections the station allowed banned opposition
parties and unions access to the airwaves. In July 1996 soldiers
stormed, vandalized, and occupied Radio Anfani studios in retaliation
for the station's political coverage. The station was off the air for
one month. In March 1997 the station was ransacked and Boucar and
other journalists at the station arrested.
Since early 1997 Boucar and his staff have been repeatedly arrested,
harassed, and threatened, CPJ officials said. Many of Boucar's
colleagues believe that it is just a matter of time before President
Mainassara's irritation with Anfani's objective reporting and
popularity among the citizenry prompts him to order the station
permanently shut down.
"A number of Niger journalists have gone into exile because the
situation for the press there is so dangerous at the moment, but he
has chosen to stay and to try to continue broadcasting. It is a very
tenuous situation and he is under constant threats," Cooper said.
Boucar said that he thought that maybe he was fighting a losing
battle, but now he feels that his situation has reached even the
United States and international organizations are giving him hope and
are providing help.
Therefore, Boucar said through an interpreter, he is more hopeful for
the future.
"Journalism is very hard, but I'm not going to give up, even for the
cost of my life, and that's how journalism is in Africa right now," he
said.
The CPJ award is important for African journalists who are hesitant to
do their job in a dictatorship, he said, adding that when they see
this recognition it may encourage them.
Journalism in Africa is quite different from journalism in the West
because about 70 percent of Africans illiterate and depend on the
radio, Boucar said.
Award-winner Gorriti "is an uncompromising advocate for press freedom
who has survived abduction by armed commandos in his native Peru and
continual legal harassment in Panama, where he has lived since 1996,"
Cooper said.
Gorriti "has been a very aggressive critic of Peruvian President
Alberto Fujimori. In 1992 he was seized by the military and he might
well never have been seen again except for a rapid and very noisy
response from the international community, including the Committee to
Protect Journalists," Cooper said.
"He was released but continued to live under extreme pressure in Peru,
including constant death threats. Eventually, he moved to Panama,
where he is now associate director of La Prensa newspaper. Last year
Panama canceled his work visa because Gustavo has been just as
aggressive reporting on the Panamanian government as he was on the
Peruvian government," she said.
Gorriti said that "Latin America remains still one of the most
dangerous places in the world to be a journalist and it is perhaps not
quite a paradox that the press in Latin America -- especially in the
current process of democratization -- has played a very large role, a
much larger role than in other structured societies...in strengthening
the mechanisms and dynamics of transparency and accountability."
"All over Latin America, especially because in most countries the
press gives counterweight to the executive...the credibility of
journalists is very, very high and most of the society values their
role, their contribution," Gorriti said.
Goenawan Mohamad, the founder and editor of Tempo news magazine in
Indonesia, which was forced to close in 1994 and reopened in October
1998, "is a beacon of hope to Indonesian journalists in his unwavering
determination to develop a genuinely independent press," Cooper said.
Mohamad decided not to travel to New York to accept the award because
the situation in his country is so unsettled, she said.
Sheremet, another award-winner who was not able to attend the
ceremony, has been under orders by the Belarus government not to
travel out of the country until January 1999 for reporting opposition
criticisms of the government of Aleksandr Lukashenko.
Sheremet's ORT broadcasts to Moscow got back to Belarus and so
infuriated the Belarus government, Cooper said, that he was arrested,
held for a while, then released with a suspended sentence. But his
reporting credentials have been lifted by Belarus and he was banned
from leaving the country.
CPJ "made strong appeals to the Belarus government to let Pavel travel
and come to New York to receive the award but on [November 20] he was
called and told he will not be allowed to travel here to pick up his
award. We are very disappointed about this," she said.
Speakers at the black-tie dinner and awards ceremony included Anne
Garrels of National Public Radio, Tom Brokaw of NBC News, Peter
Jennings of ABC News, Dan Rather of CBS News, and Tina Rosenberg of
The New York Times. Chairmen of the event were Mortimer Zuckerman,
editor-in-chief and publisher, and Harold Evans, editorial director,
of U.S. News & World Report, The (New York) Daily News, and The
Atlantic Monthly.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is a non-profit, nonpartisan
organization founded in 1981 to monitor abuses against the press and
promote press freedom around the world. Hundreds of working
journalists from print and broadcast media as well as others who are
committed to fostering the principles of a free press are CPJ members.
CPJ is the only organization in the United States with a full-time
staff documenting and responding to violations of press freedom.