Voltaire Network, Monday, August 22, 2011, 13:20 GMT – Voltaire Network is concerned about the threats targeting two of its team members in Tripoli. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Research Associate, Centre for Research on Globalization, and Thierry Meyssan, president and founder of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference, are entrenched in the Hotel Rixos, around which heavy fighting is taking place. Reportedly, the order was given to shoot them down.
Thierry Meyssan has been in Tripoli since June 23, 2011. He started out by heading a fact-finding mission of Voltaire Network associates. For the past two months, he has been carrying out a journalistic investigation of the conflict. His stance differs from that of his peers in that: he describes the rebellion as a minority action, permitting to justify in the eyes of world public opinion a classic military operation.
Whatever the positions taken by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya and Thierry Meyssan, their killing would be unacceptable. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya and Thierry Meyssan are not combatants, but journalists. Those who support this war, thinking that it is about democracy and freedom, can not possibly condone the assassination of journalists.
Currently, five states have offered them diplomatic protection. But the fighting around the hotel prevents them from leaving the premises and some of the embassies concerned have been encircled to make access impossible.
Aware of the threats hanging over them, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Thierry Meyssan have no intention of exposing themselves to any “stray bullet”.
Voltaire Network calls on the citizens of those countries involved in the war to exert pressure on their governments to ensure the safety of these journalists. It is asking each and everyone to play his/her role as citizens and to disseminate this information.