U.S. JOURNALISTS WANT CZECH COMMUNIST OUSTED FROM OFFICE

Grey River Argus, 2 April 1948, Page 5

U.S. JOURNALISTS WANT CZECH COMMUNIST OUSTED FROM OFFICE

AS INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION SECRETARY

GENEVA, March 30

The president of the American Newspaper Guild (Mr Harry Martin), in a letter to the president of the International Organisation of Journalists (Mr Archibald Kenyon, Britain), has demanded the resignation of the Czech Communist secretary-general of the organisation (Mr Jiri Bronek). Mr Martin said that Mr Bronek had participated in the recent “undemocratic and shocking purge” of the Union of Czechoslovak journalists.

Mr Martin also demanded the removal of the headquarters of the journalists’ organisation from Prague because of dictatorial Czech Government interference” with the freedom of the press. “Serious misgivings about the secure handling of the organisation’s funds in such an atmosphere have occurred to many of us,” he said. Mr Martin, Mr Kenyon, and Mr Bronek, and several other executive members of the organisation are at Geneva attending the United Nations conference on freedom of information.

Mr Martin called on Mr Kenyon to take a poll of officials of the journalists’ organisation present at Geneva with a view to dismissing Mr Bronek jf he refuses to resign.

Mr Bronek said in an interview with the Associated Press that he did not intend to resign. He accused Mr Martin of trying to break up the organisation. Mr Kenyon said that there was no possibility of calling a meeting of the executive at Geneva because members had to receive previous instructions from their national association.

Later at the conference Mr Bronek demanded an apology from Mr Martin for his “libellous and grossly offensive implications” that the funds of the journalists’ organisation were not secure in his hands