His Excellency Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Secretary General
United Nations
New York, NY
USA

Vienna, 11 October 1994

The International Press Institute (IPI), representing editors and leading journalists from newspapers, magazines, broadcasting organisations and news agencies in over 80 countries, is most concerned about the United Nations Secretariat’s recent decision to reject the application of four Taiwanese correspondents to cover the UN General Assembly.

The four correspondents, Joseph Chiu of the Taiwanese Television Enterprise (TTV) Tony Lin of the Chinese Television System (CTS), Lisa L.W. Shen of the China Television Company (CTV) and David Wang of the Central News Agency (CNA) applied for their press passes from the United Nations Department of Public Information (UNDPI) on 19 September 1994.

Although all four correspondents have been formerly accredited with the UN, we understand that their applications were turned down with the sole explanation that the move was a continuation of the previous year’s revocation of Mr. Wang’s press pass.

IPI wrote to you on October 4 1993 following the revocation of the CNA correspondent’s UN press pass last year. We are informed that Mr. Wang was ineligible for accreditation under the terms of a 1972 UN Legal Counsel ruling, which stated that there existed “an indissoluble link between an accredited correspondent and the agency he represents” and that the “UNDPI was instructed to withhold accreditation from any government-backed media representative from Taiwan.”

We believe that the UN should issue press passes to all journalists who seek accreditation on behalf of internationally-recognized news organizations. To draw distinction between state-owned and private media, whereby journalists working for the former are regarded as representatives of their government, and to apply this reasoning only to journalists working for Taiwanese-based news organization, is a flagrant violation of the “right to
seek, receive and impart information through any media and regardless of frontiers”, as expressed in Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

IPI therefore urges you to end the politicization of press accreditation at the UN and to ensure that the press credentials of Ms. Shen and Messrs Chiu, Lin and Wang are restored without further delay.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director