The Independent reports that a number of leading European arts and media figures - including Pedro Almódovar, Gunther Grass, and Kate Adie - have joined forces to appeal to Washington for the release of Judith Miller, the veteran New York Times reporter who yesterday marked her 50th day in prison for refusing to testify in the inquiry into the leaking of the identity of the CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Ms Miller was sent to a federal prison in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington DC on 6 July for refusing to reveal her sources in the case of Ms Plame, whose identity as a CIA agent was revealed to American journalists in 2003, apparently in violation of federal law.

No working member of the US press in recent history has spent more time behind bars than Ms Miller. She has already overtaken William Farr, a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, who was jailed in 1972 for 46 days for not revealing sources in a criminal case.

Former Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole has also lamented her incarceration and voiced support for a new federal law protecting reporters from legal consequence for protecting sources.

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