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Alert

Journalist given jail term with no parole for press offence for the first time since fall of communism

(RSF/IFEX) - A journalist has been sentenced to a jail term with no parole for a press offence for the first time since the fall of communism in 1990.

On 21 January 2004, Andras Bencsik, editor-in-chief of the weekly "Magyar Demokrata", was sentenced to 10 months in prison with no parole for "libelling" Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) Imre Mecs.

A second journalist with the paper, Laszlo Attila Bertok, was given a suspended eight-month prison sentence. Both journalists are planning to appeal their sentences within the next few days.

"We do not dispute the fact that journalists can be punished for writing defamatory articles. Under international standards, however, prison terms should never be imposed for press offences, even if the sentences are suspended," RSF said in a letter to Justice Minister Peter Barandy.

"We strongly hope that the prison sentences will be reduced to fines on appeal. To mark the fact your country will join the European Union on 1 May 2004, we also ask you to introduce an urgent reform of your defamation legislation, so that the courts can no longer hand down such sentences," the organisation added.

Mecs played an active role in the 1956 revolution against the communist regime. In articles published in "Magyar Demokrata" on 15 November 2001, Bencsik and Bertok claimed that he had informed on four fellow revolutionaries who were sentenced to death and hanged on the basis of his testimony. The Liberal Democrat MP was himself sentenced to death in 1957 for plotting against the state, but was amnestied in 1963.

The court said the "Magyar Demokrata" journalists had seriously damaged Mecs's reputation.