His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

30 November 2010

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the World Editors Forum and the European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA), to call for the immediate release of two German journalists who are facing charges of visa violations.

The journalists, a reporter and a photographer, were arrested while interviewing the son of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death by stoning on charges of adultery. The authorities accused them of travelling on tourist visas and working illegally. Bild am Sonntag launched a public appeal last week after the reporters were shown on Iranian state television apparently confessing to their "crimes".

We respectfully remind you that prosecuting journalists for carrying out their profession violates numerous international conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the Declaration states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers."

We respectfully call on you to ensure that the two German journalists and all others jailed for exercising their right to freedom of expression are immediately released and their sentences overturned. We urge you to take all necessary steps to ensure that in future your government upholds international standards of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin O'Reilly
President
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers

Xavier Vidal-Folch
President
World Editors Forum

Ivar Rusdal
President
European Newspaper Publishers' Association

WAN-IFRA is the global organisation for the world's newspapers and news publishers, with formal representative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The organization groups 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.

ENPA, based in Brussels, represents over 5,200 national, regional and local newspaper titles, published in 23 European Member States plus Norway and Switzerland. More than 150 million newspapers are sold and read by over 300 million Europeans every day, in addition to the millions of unique daily visits to online newspapers websites.

The World Editors Forum (WEF) is the organisation within WAN-IFRA for chief editors and other senior newsroom personnel.