- Anyone who thinks the administration and its law enforcement
chief, Attorney General John Ashcroft, aren't out to impede a free press
need only hear how the federal government is treating foreign journalists
coming to this country on assignment.
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- Without notification to foreign media outlets, the immigration
and customs people are arresting, detaining, and deporting journalists
arriving here without special visas. This is so even when they come from
nations whose citizens can stay for up to 90 days without a visa if they
are arriving as tourists or on business.
-
- If that threatening form of registration is not enough,
members of the press arriving without the visas, which no one told them
they needed, are treated like criminals, handcuffed as they're marched
through airports, photographed, fingerprinted, and their DNA taken.
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- Peter Krobath, chief editor for the Austrian movie magazine
Skip, was held overnight in a cold room with 45 others who arrived without
the visa. The room had two open toilets, a metal bench, and a concrete
bench. He was here to interview movie star Ben Affleck and see the movie
Paycheck.
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- Thomas Sjoerup, a photographer for the Danish paper Ekstra
Bladet, was deported after a few hours during which a mugshot, fingerprints,
and DNA sample were taken. A French journalist said he and five others
from his country were marched across the airport in handcuffs, without
belts or laces.
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- The International Press Institute in Vienna, a media
freedom group, has complained not only about Mr. Korbath's treatment but
also, and indeed more important, the fact that only foreign journalists
need special visas.
-
- The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists
is about to launch a global campaign against the absurd and repressive
rule that casts suspicion on working journalists who come to this country
on business as valid as any other traveler's.
-
- A U.S. embassy official in Vienna said visas have always
been required. If that requirement existed, it was more honored in its
breach and ought to be rescinded.
-
- It should not take a world media outcry to address this
problem. It's a policy that puts these United States in the ranks of Third
World dictatorships.
-
- Members of Congress, regardless of party, who understand
the absurdity of it all, even in these troubled times, should demand an
end to this repressive embarrassment.
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- It's not likely President Bush ever will.
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- © 2003 The Blade.
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