Page 10-Saturday, July 26, 1980-The Michigan Daily
PROTEST KILLING OF GUILD CHIEF
Beirut newspapers close
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Beirut
newspapers stopped their presses
yesterday in a two-day demonstration
by journalists over the assassination of
the head of their professional guild.
The protest consituted a rare display
of national unity, banding together lef-
tist and rightist journalists who suppor-
ted rival sides in Lebanon's 1975-76 Civil
War.
RIYAD TAHA, chairman of
Lebanon's Press Syndicate, was the
latest victim of a wave of terror direc-
ted against local and foreign news
media correspondents in conflict-torn
Beirut.
The government of President Elias
Sarkis admits it is unable to guarantee
the safety of reporters in a city that,
before this nation's civil war, enjoyed
the greatest press freedom in the tur-
hulent Middle East.
"It is agonizing to see Lebanese jour-
nalists falling one after the other
without being able to punish the
culprits," lamented Information
Minister Youssef Jubran.
THE NEWSPAPERS' shutdown
nalists. Speculation about who may be
behind the various incidents is ram-
pant, but even the most outspoken jour-
nalists consider it dangerous to write
about their suspicions.
"I am muzzling my pen voluntarily,"
'It is agonizing to see Lebanese jour-
nalists falling one after the other without
being able to punish the culprits.'
- Youssef Jubran, Lebanon
Information Minister
closely followed a one-night walkout by
state television employees to protest a
five-hour abduction of their general
manager, Charles Rizk, in Beirut's
Christian sector Tuesday. Rizk
resigned his post after his release and
decided to leave the country.
None of the kidnappers and gunmen
has been apprehended, and no clear
pattern has emerged in, the wave of
said a Lebanese columnist, who asked
not to be identified. "life is dear."
TAHA WAS THE second prominent
Lebanese journalist to be slain this
year.
Editor-publisher Salim Lawzi of the
London-based Lebanese magazine Al
Hawadess, was abducted at gunpoint on
the Beirut Airport highway last March
before boarding a plane to return to
days later.
Last year, Robert Pfeffer, a West
German correspondent who formerly
worked for Stern Magazine of Ham-
burg, was shot and killed outside his
Beirut apartment. He had been working
on a book about terrorism in the Middle
East.
BERND DEBUSMANN, Beirut
correspondent of Britain's Reuter news
agency, was shot and wounded on a
street of the Lebanese capital on June 9.
He left the country under armed guard
after his discharge from a hospital.
A week after that assassination at-
tempt, a Syrian journalist and poet,
Assem el Jundi, was shot and wounded
in a Beirut suburb. Jundi had serialized
the life story of international master
terrorist "Carlos."
Three other Western correspondents
were reported to have left Beirut after
receiving death threats. Among them
was Tim Llewellyn, Middle East
correspondent of the British Broad-
casting Corp.
Taha, 53, was shot while riding in a
car along a crowded coastal highway
Wednesday.
Milliken
expected
to veto
strike
bill
LANSING (UPI) - Gov. William
Milliken is expected to end weeks of an-
ticipation and veto controversial right-
to-strike legislation for public em-
ployees early next week - probably.
Monday.
Milliken was going over staff
recommendations at his summer
residence on Mackinac Island yester-
day while his advisers in Lansing were
putting finishing touches on a proposed
veto message.
MILLIKEN AIDES said the delay in
acting on the measures approved
earlier this month does not reflect any
indecision on the part of the governor
wh has consistently voiced grave
reservations about the bills.
The package - a product of months
of hearings and behind-the-scenes
negotiations in the legislature - grants
teachers and other local government
workers a qualified right to strike.
It imposes financial penalties to
discourage school strikes, allows
judges to halt walkouts which threaten
the public health and safety and
provides for binding arbitration to set-
tle some intractable disputes.
Milliken has said he believes the anti-
strike penalties are not stiff enough and
opposes provisions on binding ar
bitration and union coverage for super-
visors.
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