'No right' to stop journalists doing their job

Both the Institute of Maltese Journalists and the Journalists' Committee reacted to comments made by the Police Commissioner following incidents involving the press during Tuesday's illegal immigrants' breakout.

The Journalists' Committee reiterated its concern about what it termed as the poor understanding of the role of the press by people in authority, following Police Commissioner John Rizzo's reaction.

"It is preposterous that the Police Commissioner suggests, just as Judge (Franco) Depasquale had alleged in his inquiry into the Safi incidents, that the media instigates violence by being present," the committee said.

It said the media was required to be present and to fully cover events such as last Tuesday's breakout in the public interest, and while there might be room to discuss the specific parameters in which journalists operated, nobody in authority had the right to try and stop individual journalists from doing their job.

"Press freedom is unquestionable in any democratic country, and it is extremely worrying that people in authority fail to accept this. It is already a serious imposition on the press that the government adopts a blanket ban on media access to detention centres; extending this ban to the streets and public places is, effectively, censorship.

"The police had no right to order cameramen and photographers to stop filming last Tuesday. Moreover, a photographer had to be hospitalised after he was pushed in the chest by a police officer. The Journalists' Committee stands by its position that this type of behaviour is unacceptable by any standard," it said.

The Institute of Maltese Journalists said the Police Commissioner's reaction to its statement about the ill-treatment of journalists and photographers during Tuesday's incidents demonstrated "a gross misunderstanding of the function of the media in a democratic society".

"In a democratic society the journalist not only had the right but also the duty to report incidents like those that occurred at the detention centres, which are in the public interest.

"The authorities, including the police, had the duty to allow journalists to report comprehensively these events of public interest within agreed parameters," it said.

The institute deemed the Police Commissioner's statement that the media "instigated tension" through its presence in such instances and should thus not be allowed to report as unacceptable. This, it went on, was yet an indication of the wrong forma mentis of the police and other authorities when dealing with such incidents.

Commenting on incidents during the Croatia-Malta football match a few months back, the institute said that although it was Malta Football Association staff that confiscated memory cards, the police still acted "abusively" when they tried to stop photographers from taking pictures and ordered them out of the stadium when violence was still occurring.