Pub. L. 100-463, tit. VIII, sec. 8144

Sec. 8144. (a) The Congress finds that— (1) the armed forces of the Soviet Union have waged a brutal war of conquest against the people of Afghanistan for 8 years; (2) foreign correspondents attempting to cover the war in Afghanistan have always been subject to extreme danger; (3) the danger to foreign correspondents became even greater in 1984 when the Soviet Ambassador to Pakistan explicitly threatened foreign journalists entering Afghanistan in the company of the Afghan resistance, known as the mujaheddin; (4) on September 19, 1985, Charles E. Thornton, a medical reporter for the Arizona Republic, was killed by Soviet troops while preparing a story about volunteer doctors in Afghanistan; (5) on October 9, 1987, Lee Shapiro, of North Bergen, New Jersey, and Jim Lindelof, of California, were ambushed and murdered by Soviet troops while filming a documentary on the war in Afghanistan; (6) the statements of Abdul Malik, the Afghan interpreter and guide who accompanied Lee Shapiro and Jim Lindelof and who witnessed their deaths, demonstrate that the two Americans were straffed by helicopter gunships of the Soviet Union and shot by Soviet soldiers who then confiscated their equipment and film; and (7) Charles E. Thornton, Lee Shapiro, and Jim Lindelof dis-played great courage by facing the perils of war and the lethal threat directed against correspondents and ultimately gave their lives to inform the world of the struggle for liberty taking place in Afghanistan. (b) It is the sense of the Congress that the President should posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Charles E. Thornton, Lee Shapiro, and Jim Lindelof in honor of their brave efforts to document the Afghan struggle for freedom.