USA
WHEREAS
several foreign journalists have been detained by U.S. military forces in
Iraq and later released, sometimes with no explanation for their arrest
WHEREAS
the U.S. government has yet to fully explain the circumstances that resulted
in a U.S. tank firing on the Palestine hotel in Baghdad killing Ukrainian
cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Spanish television reporter José Couso
on April 8, 2003
WHEREAS
eight foreign journalists — one Austrian, one British and six French
— were detained at Los Angeles International Airport and then denied
entry to the United States because they held only short-term visas
WHEREAS
the Pentagon denied Human Rights Watch’s request to attend and observe
military commission trials of detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba
WHEREAS
a federal grand jury probing the leak of a CIA officer’s identity to
columnist Robert Novak is seeking White House records of contacts with more
than two dozen journalists and news organizations
WHEREAS
a federal judge last October ordered five journalists to reveal their confidential
sources for reports on accusations of espionage against scientist Wen Ho Lee,
formerly employed at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory
WHEREAS
the U.S. Treasury Department recently warned publishers that they face serious
legal consequences (possible “trading with the enemy” charges)
if they edit in any way manuscripts from Iran and other nations with which
the United States maintains a trade embargo
WHEREAS
Principle 5 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states, “Prior censorship,
restrictions on the circulation of the media or dissemination of their reports,
forced publication of information, the imposition of obstacles to the free
flow of news, and restrictions on the activities and movements of journalists
directly contradict freedom of the press”
THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF
THE IAPA RESOLVES
to remind the U.S. government
that each and all of these acts and decisions threaten or violate the guarantees
of freedom of the press as contained in the Bill of Rights of the United States
Constitution, established case law, and relevant provisions of the Declaration
of Chapultepec
specifically, the Inter
American Press Association asks that foreign journalists be permitted to enter
the United States and work on short-term visas and that the U.S. customs service
and the U.S. military in Iraq respect the professional status and dignity
of foreign journalists, that the Pentagon open any Guantanamo tribunals to
the widest possible press coverage, that federal grand juries and federal
judges refrain from attempting to discover journalists’ confidential
sources, and that the U.S. Treasury Department rescind its bizarre interpretation
that any editing of manuscripts from nations on the U.S. government’s
trade embargo list somehow constitutes possible “trading with the enemy.”
questions
or comments?