Gov. Bill Richardson will travel to Sudan on Thursday to meet with Sudanese President Lt. General Umar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir and urge him to release journalist Paul Salopek and two colleagues on humanitarian grounds.
The three were arrested a month ago and charged with espionage, passing information illegally, and writing false news. Salopek, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is on leave from his job as foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and was on a freelance assignment for National Geographic magazine when he was arrested.
Salopek lives in Columbus, N.M., with his wife, Linda Lynch, who will accompany Richardson on the trip.
“Paul Salopek is clearly not a spy. He’s my constituent, and he is a talented and respected journalist who was attempting to do his job telling the story of the people, culture and history of the sub-Saharan region known as the Sahel,” Richardson said in a news release. “I will encourage President al-Bashir to recognize the essential role of journalists and a free press and release Paul and his colleagues on humanitarian grounds.”
Salopek’s wife and Chicago Tribune Editor-in-Chief Ann Marie Lipinski first appealed to Richardson for help, and he met last week with Sudan’s Ambassador to the United States, Khadir Haroun Ahmed, in Washington, D.C., to discuss Salopek’s detainment. The two have been friends since 1996, when Richardson was a congressman from New Mexico and negotiated the release of three Red Cross workers, an American pilot and others who were held by Sudanese rebels. Ahmed was his translator.
This week the Sudanese government formally invited Richardson to travel to Sudan and meet with the president, according to the news release.
Gov. Bill Richardson will travel to