Journalists' concern at police attitude

The Institute of Maltese Journalists (IGM) has strongly condemned the assault by police officers on Ben Borg Cardona.

The institute noted that this was yet another case when the police have manhandled journalists and photographers while covering delicate events. Only last September, police officers had acted abusively with camerapersons and photographers at the at the end of the Malta-Croatia match at Ta' Qali.

The Journalists' Committee has expressed concern about what it termed the confrontational attitude of police officers towards journalists, particularly photographers and cameramen, who were reporting the uprising by immigrants at the Hal Safi detention centre yesterday.

"In the commotion, police officers, including Police Commissioner John Rizzo, shouted repeatedly to cameramen and photographers to 'let them (the police) do their job' even though the press stayed behind the police line," the committee said in a statement, adding that individual police officers were also heard instructing photographers and cameramen to stop filming the incident.

At one point, photo-journalist Ben Borg Cardona from The Malta Independent was manhandled by police officers, who pushed him in the chest, with the result that he required medical attention for slight injuries, the committee said.

The committee acknowledged that the police were doing their job, but so were the journalists, it said.