Pressure on reporters

Press, 10 June 1977, Page 5

Pressure on reporters

,] NZPA - Reuter Oslo t The managing director of! -the Reuter news agency saysi [that foreign correspondents. ;now live more dangerously]: and under more threat of;, (harassment than at any time 'since the Second World - "War. ,! Mr Gerald Long urged the - [lnternational Press Institute. [meeting in Oslo, to act to [{secure better conditions for 1 l! correspondents. ’[ He said that this was [more important than its “an-,: [nual jeremiad about freedom'' I of the press in countries; {which lack the political sys- ! ; i tern in which such freedom : (should be based.” l< i Mr Long was speaking atjl the annual assembly of the i

I.P.L, an organisation of sen-! jior journalists from 63 countries set up in 1951 to 1 defend the free flow of . information and raise the {standards of international [journalism. Mr Long gave the 1.P.1. a catalogue of 81 examples of harassment and ill-treatment: of foreign correspondents! over a'l4-montli period up to last April. I Of these, 15 took place in {the Soviet Union and 14 in Czechoslovakia. Incidents in ,27 other countries were also -cited. He said that for almost 15, years, he had the final responsibility for the work of one of the largest bodies of [foreign correspondents in the world. p

i “In many countries of the world during that time, working conditions for correspondents have been growing steadily worse, and I believe that correspondents now live more dangerously and under more threat of harassment than at any time {since the Second World [War,” he said. He said he believed that the 1.P.1. should be “gravely concerned at the catalogue of ill-treatment, that it should resolve at once to list and study them, asking for the co-operation of everyone concerned, and that the institute should do [its best to secure better conditions for correspondents.”