His Excellency Gulbuddin Hekmatyr
Prime Minister of the Republic of Afghanistan
Char Rahi Sedarat
Kabul
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Vienna, 12 November 1993

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), protest most strongly at the detention on 8 November 1993 of Mr. Terence White and Mr. John Jennings by members of the Prime Minister’s armed forces.

We understand that Messrs White and Jennings, two highly respected correspondents working for Agence France Press (AFP) and the Associated Press (AP) respectively, were travelling in the region around Tabag, the scene of heavy fighting between your forces and those of General Ahmed Shah Massoud. The two journalists were apprehended by your troops, along with twenty-eight soldiers from General Massoud’s army, approximately sixty kilometres east of Kabul.

IPI, representing over 2000 journalists and editors from leading newspapers, magazines and broadcasting organizations and news agencies in 68 countries, considers the detention of Messrs White and Jennings to be in clear violation of the journalists right to “seek, receive and impart information through any media and regardless of frontiers,” as guaranteed by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We therefore urge you to help obtain their release without delay and to ensure that all possible steps are taken to protect the safety of journalists working in Afghanistan.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director