Gambian journalists’ demand safety at work
Banjul, Gambia (PANA) - Gambian journalists Monday presented a position paper to the minister of Information and Communication calling for safety at work.
The paper also called on the government to provide proactive and reactive means to safeguard the safety of journalists and combat impunity for crimes against journalists.
A recent study showed that journalists, including those in The Gambia, are more likely to be murdered than killed in war, adding that the government had the primary responsibility to prevent this from happening.
Receiving the paper from the Publishers Association, Community Radio’s Association and Network of freelance Journalists led by Gambia Press Union, Ebrima Sillah, information Minister, assured the journalists of their safety.
He disclosed that government had already put in place funds to help journalists amid this critical condition of coronavirus (COVID-19).
He said because of the outbreak of coronavirus, consideration might be given to media organizations not to pay their tax.
“Newspapers in this country are bigger to one another and therefore privilege will be given to the media houses with larger staff and freelancers.”
Sheriff Bojang, president the Gambia Press Union said: “We want everything to be clear because this issue deals with money and we (GPU) wouldn’t want to take any blame whereas there are faults.
“We would want the government to look at ongoing cause, particularly the manhandling of reporters by the security officers.
“The systematic press briefing with the president is almost dying and this is where journalists would be accorded the chance by engaging government officials in limiting themselves with fake and false news,” he stated.
Pap Saine, publisher of the private newspaper -The Point- and also a member of the Publishers Association, lamented that newspapers in the country were ‘almost dying due to lack of adverts’
He disclosed that “many African leaders are helping their people in all the ways they could except for The Gambia. “We are hustling every day to get adverts and the responses we always received are the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
-0- PANA MSS/RA 13Jul2020
