Wednesday, May 07, 2003

Egunkaria's Case at BBC

Egunkaria is finally getting the respect it deserves from the media, check this out:

"Many millions" in the world will hear about Egunkaria next Friday

Egunkaria's chief editor Martxelo Otamendi has been interviewed by BBC World satellite channel. Millions of spectators are expected to know about the closing of the Basque newspaper through Reporters, on May the 9th

After more than two months of almost total silence over the closure of Basque journal Egunkaria, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will break its reserve on May the 9th. Egunkaria is scheduled to be one of the main issues of BBC World satellite channel's "Reporters" emission. The emission's might well have "many millions of viewers", says BBC reporter Jackie Rowland.

Rowland interviewed Egunkaria's editor Martxelo Otamendi on May the 4th, before the closed entrance of the journal. Along with the questions about the closure of Egunkaria, the BBC reporter asked Otamendi about the political situation in the Basque Country, specially about the outlawing of pro independence party Batasuna, the ban against AuB (Assembly for Self-determination) from running for next local elections, Spanish Government's strategy and ETA's activity.

Rowland says to have Learned a lot about Basque politics in the couple of days spent in the Basque Country. The most striking feature she says to have confronted, is the existence of so many prisoners: "I did not know that there were up to 700 Basque prisoners. That is amazing", she said to Egunero.

About the closure of Egunkaria she declared that "nobody working for free press would support the shutting of a newspaper".

The report will be broad casted next Friday at 20:00 (London time), and short versions will be shown many times on that day. As Rowland declared, BBC World has a potential audience of 100 million, and Reporters emission might well be seen by "many millions" around the world.


... .... .

No comments:

Post a Comment