Dear newspaper executive,

Imagine the unthinkable. Armed men barge into your office or home, lock you in handcuffs and abduct you. You are interrogated and thrown into a cell. There, you wait for hours, days or even weeks before you are charged.

You are a nuisance. You are a threat. Someone wants you out of the way.

More than 500 publishers and journalists were arrested and jailed in this way in 2005 and they number several thousand over the past decade. Dozens of them remain in prison today, serving sentences as long as 20 years.

Locking up journalists instils fear and sends a clear message: Don't meddle with affairs that don't concern you. Government corruption, for example, or criminal activity linked to influential personalities, or the absence of political pluralism and human rights.

With the exception of a handful of prominent cases, our colleagues who, deep in prison cells, are paying the price of their excessive curiosity or attachment to press freedom, are faceless and unknown other than to their families and colleagues.

The World Association of Newspapers believes that each and every one of these courageous men and women deserves our attention and solidarity and that we owe it to them to campaign for their release.

We need your help in doing this. On 3 May 2006, World Press Freedom Day, we ask you to support our efforts to highlight these shameful abuses, around the theme: 'Don't Lock Up Information: Stop Jailing Journalists!'

Thank you in advance – on behalf of our imprisoned colleagues – for your help.

Timothy Balding
Chief Executive Officer
World Association of Newspapers

A number of individuals and organisations have made this year’s campaign possible. We would like to express our sincere thanks to AdForum, Agence France-Presse, Beckman’s College of Design, the Burma Media Association, Committee to Protect Journalists, Michel Cambon, Radio Free Europe and Team Armstrong.