LISBON, Portugal -- The International Federation of Newspaper Editors awarded its Golden Pen of Freedom today to South African editor Anthony Heard who faces possible imprisonment for publishing an interview with a black nationalist leader.
Heard, editor of the Cape Times, is scheduled to stand trial in Cape Town June 17 for publishing an interview Nov. 4 with Oliver Tambo, the exiled president of the African National Congress.
Under South African law, to quote or refer to any person 'listed' or banned by the government, as is Tambo, is a criminal offense punishable by up to three years imprisonment with no option of a fine.
In presenting Heard the award, Cushrow Irani of India, president of the organization's committee for communications policy, said the free press was 'determined to insist that no harm should come to our colleague for doing his duty. FIEJ is the acronynm for the editors' federation.
'The free press of the world will monitor his case and promise our word will be heard and respected,' Irani said.
Heard told the 39th congress of FIEJ, opened in Lisbon by Portuguese President Mario Soares, that if he is found guilty 'then so be it.
'I happen to take my profession seriously ...,' Heard said. 'Mr. Tambo happens to be an increasingly important player in the crisis unfolding in my part of the world and I believe authentic journalism can't ignore that fact.
'I would have thought it vitally important to know what was going on in his (Tambo's) mind.'
The official suppression of truth, Heard said, was robbing white South Africans of 'an appreciation of the new forces that are bearing down on them sometimes at hurricane speed.'
He said he saw freedom as indivisible and that wherever in the world attempts are made to interfere with free expression 'it is not only to be deprecated but resisted and circumvented.'
Heard appealed to the Soviet Uniuon to release the editor of the unofficial 'Chronicle of Current Events,' Yuri Shikhanovich.
The Chronicle arose after the 1975 Helsinki accords on European security and cooperation but has been surpressed.
The outgoing president of FIEJ, Gordon Linacre of England, referred to the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear disaster as an example of the need for freedom of information.
What he called 'the deep silence from Mother Russia' had created 'a great breeding ground for the demons of secrecy,' which he listed as gossip, rumor, fear, exaggeration and misinformation.
'Those who would have reacted with sympathy, if told the truth, reacted instead with anger and dismay,' Linacre said.
