Andrew Berends Needs Our Help

My friend Karolyn sent me an email about a New York-based freelance filmmaker and journalist who was working on a film about the oil-producing Delta region in Nigeria. Andrew was Karolyn’s daughter Katherine’s high school class. His mother, Polly, is the author of Whole Parent, Whole Child and is a dear friend of Karolyn’s. Andrew was arrested on Sunday and accused of spying. His passportand filmmaking equipment have been confiscated. “They didn’t let me sleep or eat or drink water for the first 36 hours,” he said Tuesday night. Polly has asked for help - if you can contact any political heavyweight to intervene on Andy’s behalf, please do.

Several other foreign journalists and filmmakers have been detained while working in the region in recent years. In April, four members of a Seattle-based film crew were arrested in the Delta and held for six days on spying charges. Apparently, Nigeria doesn’t want the world to notice the economic and ecological disaster that is taking place in the Niger Delta.

Despite its oil riches, the Niger Delta is a desperately poor and increasingly lawless part of the country, where wealth is siphoned away by corrupt officials. Militants demand a greater share of the area’s oil resources and claim to be fighting on behalf of the impoverished residents, but also appear to be engaging in many criminal and opportunistic acts of violence. Hundreds of foreign workers and wealthy Nigerians have been kidnapped for ransom, and oil theft is rampant.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has demanded his immediate release, but we need to bring more pressure on Nigeria to stop this wanton censureship of filmmakers and journalists. If you can, please call your Congressional Representative and your Senators.

Thanks!