International Freedom of Expression Exchange: The global network for free expression
4 April 2000
Alert
Two foreign journalists arrested
Incident details
David Leland, Ginny Stein journalist(s) arrested(RSF/IFEX) - In a 3 April 2000 letter to Prime Minister Sisavat Keobounphanh, RSF protested the arrest of two journalists from the Australian television broadcaster ABC. The press freedom organisation asked the prime minister to "order an inquiry into this arrest, which is a serious attack on the free flow of information". RSF also called on Keobounphanh to allow foreign journalists to work freely in Laos.
According to the information collected by RSF, Ginny Stein and David Leland, ABC correspondent in Bangkok and cameraman, respectively, were arrested on 30 March by policemen in Vientiane. They had been filming the debris of a restaurant destroyed by a bomb a few minutes earlier. The two reporters were released five hours later, but their camera and films were confiscated. On 3 April the camera was returned but not the film, which contained the only pictures taken of the bombing, in which some ten people were injured, many of them foreign tourists. The two journalists had official accreditation, but the authorities said they were "not authorised to cover this event."
Source:
Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
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