Journalists told don’t take press freedom for granted

Caribbean journalists have been urged not to take the press freedom they enjoy for granted and have been urged to work to ensure that these rights are guaranteed.

Patrick Cozier, Secretary General of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) told a gathering of media professionals from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Monday that while they have been fortunate not to have had the same “intensity of experience” as journalists in Latin America, Asia and Africa, they need to be vigilant.{{more}}

Cozier was speaking in Washington D.C. at the Organization of American States (OAS) headquarters at a seminar for Caribbean journalists.

The CBU head advised his colleagues that they should not rest on their laurels as there have been periodic episodes of infringement in CARICOM. He cited the case of the Starbroek News in Guyana which has lost government advertising and the recent expulsion of two journalists from Antigua. “We need to ensure that we are vigilant and do not allow a creeping, insidious threat to media to take place even though we have a background of relative comfort,” he said.

Cozier was supported by John Graham, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas who during his address, chided regional journalists for “keeping quiet” last month when a TV station that had been broadcasting for 53 years in Venezuela went off the air after the Venezuelan Government refused to renew its broadcast license.

Graham said that all of CARICOM was silent, and journalists should speak out whenever or wherever there are infringements, not only when they are personally affected.

Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS, speaking at the seminar’s opening ceremony, stated that equity and social justice can only be achieved when there is freedom of expression.

Insulza stressed that it is not enough for citizens to be allowed to express themselves freely, but specific laws should be passed to guarantee this right.

He stated that the practice of giving public officials special protection was incompatible with the right of freedom of expression. Rather, he opined, these persons should be “exposed to a higher degree of scrutiny so as to foster public debate and democratic oversight of their conduct”.

Journalists were encouraged to press for their respective countries to sign the Inter-American charter of Human Rights which would make it easier for the Inter-American system to intervene when press freedom is threatened.

Insulza reminded the media professionals that in the past year, 20 people were killed in the Americas for reasons that could be related to their work as journalists, and four more have gone missing. “Murdering or assaulting journalists because of their work is the most brutal means of restricting freedom of expression.”

The seminar, sponsored by the governments of Canada, Chile and other OAS member states at a cost of US$80,000, ran from June 18-19 and was attended by 35 senior media professionals from CARICOM including St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The seminar was organized to coincide with the Conference on the Caribbean, which saw President of the United States George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and other US officials meeting with CARICOM leaders from June 19-21 in Washington D.C.

The “Conference on the Caribbean — A 20/20 Vision,” examined how to build economic growth and development for the betterment of Caribbean democracy, human rights, and justice.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines was represented Searchlight’s Clare Keizer and Editor of the Vincentian newspaper, Cyprian Neehall. (CK)