Since our last meeting, your committee has written and sent eleven letters protesting press freedom abuses. Four more have been assigned and are being composed now.
Our most recent letter was to Mexico ‘s President Felipe Calderon, protesting the continuing persecution of journalists who attempt to cover the country’s horrific drug wars. The violence comes both from the narcotics traffickers and from police and soldiers who are either trying to crack down on the traffickers or trying to help them. Our letter commented on two more murders of journalists and a litany of harassment and threats to journalists trying to get the story. Some Mexican media have given up any effort to cover the drug wars, saying that it is simply too dangerous. We can only applaud those who are still on the beat.
We have written to Zimbabwe , protesting yet again the abuses of journalists trying to report on Robert Mugabe’s escalating tyranny and the country’s descent into chaos. We have also complained again to China ‘s Hu Jintao about repression of the media there, especially in light of his promise to ease restrictions as a condition of getting permission to host the Olympics. I’m afraid it is safe to predict that this will not be our last letter on this subject.
The committee told UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon that the organization violates its own principles of press freedom in denying UN access to journalists carrying Taiwanese passports or working for Taiwanese media. We pointed out that Article 19 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly says that "everyone" has the right to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any medium and regardless of frontiers." We also noted that the declaration says plainly that "no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty." Yet the UN refuses to accredit journalists from any nation not recognized by the General Assembly.
This letter drew an interesting and somewhat disingenuous reply from Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for communications and public information. He argued that the policy was not meant to exclude any media or journalists, but merely to ensure that all media "are held to the same standards and accreditation requirements, and given equal access to seek, receive and impart information and ideas." He assured us that the UN and Mr. Ban "strongly support and rigorously adhere to Article 19," as long as the journalists who invoke it are properly accredited. This is of course gobbledegook; Hu Jintao and Robert Mugabe will say the same of independent journalists trying to cover events in China and Zimbabwe . The whole notion of accrediting or licensing journalists and media is a violation of Article 19, and your committee will continue to defend it.
The committee also wrote to the Philippines, protesting the 33rd murder of a journalist there since 1992; to Sudan, where the head of the Association of Darfur Journalists has been arrested and held incommunicado at an unknown location since May 14; to Chad, complaining that its new press law increases pressure on the media; and to Cuba, applauding President Raul Castro’s signing of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and his release of four dissidents, including two journalists. We added that 22 other journalists still in Cuban jails should also be released immediately.
Finally, we wrote to Diana Pizzuti, borough commander of the 112th Precinct in Queens , asking her to investigate violent threats made to Majeed Barbar, executive editor of the Weekly Asia Tribune, over articles and advertisements in his paper that some considered anti-Muslim. Barbar, who left Pakistan in 2004 after his life was threatened because of his work for American publications, is only one of several editors in New York ‘s Pakistani community who have received threats. We told the chief that such incidents are as great a threat to press freedom here in New York as they would be in Sri Lanka or the Philippines . We have not had a reply.