Dishonore!

[Matthew X]

ITALY08.12.2002

Journalist imprisoned over articles in 1960s.
Reporters sans frontières today expressed its outrage over the imprisonment 
of former journalist Stefano Surace (photo), 69, for supposed press crimes 
committed more than 30 years ago.
The case is "doubly scandalous", Reporters Without Borders 
secretary-general Robert Ménard said in a letter to Italian President Carlo 
Azeglio Ciampi. "To sentence journalists to imprisonment for press crimes 
is contrary to UN standards, but it is unworthy of a democratic country to 
jail an elderly man who has not been a journalist for years for crimes that 
should be subject to limitation by lapse of time and which would nowadays 
not even be the subject of prosecution," he said. "We call on you to 
intervene and pardon Stefano Surace so that he can be released", the letter 
added. "We also call for the removal of prison sentences for press crimes 
from Italian law, as recommended by the UN Commission on Human Rights and 
the UN Special Rapporteur on promotion and protection of the right to 
freedom of opinion and expression."
Surace, who edited the nonconformist publication Le Ore during the 1960s, 
has been incarcerated since December 2001 in Opera prison near Milan, where 
he is serving a sentence of two years, six months and 12 days stemming from 
convictions for libel and obscenity handed down in 1963 and 1967. A 
resident of France for almost 40 years, he was arrested when he went to 
visit a friend in Italy.
He was known for his investigations into prison life and, while still a 
journalist, had founded an association of former detainees. He had ceased 
to work as a journalist before these convictions and had become a ju-jitsu 
teacher.
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