Dear Colleague,

3 May 2001 will be the tenth edition of World Press Freedom Day.

The World Association of Newspapers once again calls on media to make a major effort to give impact to this important occasion and by doing so to remind the enemies of a free press that they must account for themselves on the international stage.

With this in view, you will find here a package of materials for publication that day. This includes a review of the development of press freedom over the past ten years; the views on press freedom of a number of world leaders; advertisements illustrating attacks on freedom of the press; details of the deaths of journalists last year; case studies on journalists currently being held in prison; infographics on journalists killed and jailed.

I urge you to participate in the campaign by using some or all of these materials in your publication on 3 May or the nearest day on which you publish.

WAN recognises that newspapers are often reluctant to talk about the problems of their own profession. But we hope that you will make an exception on 3 May - not so much for the profession itself, but for your readers. The murder or jailing of a journalist, or the censorship of a publication, are, after all, first and foremost a direct violation of the basic right of the citizen, your reader, to receive information freely.

Finally, a few words of warm thanks to some of the organisations which have helped in our preparation of this package: the Committee to Protect Journalists; Reporters Sans Frontières; the International Federation of Journalists; the International Press Institute; Agence France Presse; the Inter-American Press Association; the Spanish newspaper El Mundo; Reuters and the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre.

I very much look forward to hearing how you and your publication have joined the 3 May campaign. Please be so kind as to send me copies of everything you print for World Press Freedom Day.

Yours sincerely,

Timothy Balding
Director General