New committee to press for media access

A Journalists' Committee has been set up in order to continue pressing the government to grant media access to immigrants' detention centres.

The committee was set up by a group of journalists following a meeting last week by some of those who had signed a petition sent to Justice and Home Affairs Minister on Tonio Bog February 16 seeking access to the centres.

Reacting to Dr Borg's stand against journalists visiting the detention centres, the committee said it was taking it upon itself to "follow up the petition and other issues related to press freedom".

In replying to the petition, which was signed by 100 journalists and columnists, Dr Borg had said he knew of no country that granted journalists "unlimited access" to detention centres or to prisons "because these are detention centres".

The committee noted that the petition never called for "unlimited access" to detention centres, "whatever that may mean".

"What the petition specifically asked for is that the government grants permission to individual journalists who make a request to enter detention centres to interview, film and report on living conditions in detention centres. It also stipulated that official reasons would be given when such requests are turned down," the committee said.

The committee also rebutted Dr Borg's claim that no other country gave access to journalists and said the petition called on the Maltese government to adopt the same policies as those adopted by the majority of European governments.

"Press reports, documentaries features and interviews with detainees and officials in immigration centres and prisons abound in the foreign press," the committee said.

In responding to the petition, Dr Borg also argued it was the government's policy not to give journalists access to detention centres and prison.

The newly set-up committee countered by saying that this hardly constitutes a reason for retaining the media ban. "The longevity of a policy never validates its existence," it said.

In replying to the letter sent to him on February 16, Dr Borg referred to the right of non-government organisations and international agencies to enter detention centres to verify conditions there.

The committee said, however, that unlike NGOs, whose main priority was the detainees' welfare, the journalists' main concern was gathering information in the public interest.

NGOs and journalists "do not, should not be assumed as having the same roles. Incidentally, we cannot understand the minister's rationale for granting access to politicians but denying it to journalists.

"As journalists we insist it is our duty towards the public to report as fully as possible about this issue, with a view to shaping an informed debate about this issue of national interest and therefore access to detention centres should be a normal procedure," the journalists said.