A CARIBBEAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (CBC) CAMERAMAN was arrested and charged, while two NATION media personnel were manhandled by police officers at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) on Friday night. The incident occurred when the media converged outside the QEH’s Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department to report on casualties arriving from a Transport Board bus accident at Bath, St John.Jimmy Gittens, a contract photographer with CBC, appeared before Magistrate Deborah Holder in the District “A” Bridgetown Court yesterday charged with trespassing on the QEH’s compound.
The Nation Newspaper has reported this morning that members of the media were arrested and charged yesterday (27 May 2007). The transgression is reported to be that the cameraman was deemed to be trespassing on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) compound. Let BU add its voice to those in recent times which have shown concern at the way the media is being manhandled in Barbados. BU has written exhaustively in its short existence about the ramifications of an ineffective media in Barbados. This recent attack on the Barbados media has come days after Amnesty International released its Report for 2007 outlining concerns that governments around the world are using the threat of terror in the aftermath of 911 to infringe on the rights of citizens and media alike. By the way is this the same Royal Barbados Police Force which allowed themselves to be searched like “looppy dogs” at the just concluded CWC 2007?
We applaud the effort of the QEH to crack down on security, but if the Press after showing credentials is not permitted to do the work of informing the country, we have a problem. A simple solution to this matter would have been for the PR personnel at the QEH to “arrange” the photos which would have been acceptable to all present and avoid creating a public incident. BU applaud the members of the Press involved who for the first time that we can remember in recent times have stood-up for a principle. BU is surprise that the senior reporter present, Timothy Slinger appeared to have been given the same lack of respect meted out to his more junior colleagues.
BU waits to see the fallout from this incident and how the media in Barbados will mobilize at the obvious threat to treat them as “ordinary citizens”. A timely intervention from the Barbados Association of Journalists and the Media Houses is required, NOW!
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