Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Jour­nal­ists should not be jailed for do­ing their jobs nor should they be threat­ened. Di­rec­tor of the In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute (IPI) Al­i­son Bethel-McKen­zie says there is no oth­er pro­fes­sion where peo­ple are jailed for do­ing their jobs. Bethel-McKen­zie said crim­i­nal defama­tion is one of the most im­por­tant is­sues cur­rent­ly fac­ing jour­nal­ists. She said: "We in­tend to launch a cam­paign against crim­i­nal defama­tion, not on­ly in Eu­rope but in the Caribbean. "So you will be hear­ing a lot more from us and a lot more from our part­ners."

Bethel–McKen­zie said IPI, based in Vi­en­na, Aus­tria, had been work­ing with­in the re­gion and in­tend­ed to work more ag­gres­sive­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the is­sue of crim­i­nal defama­tion. The IPI's World Con­gress will be held for the first time in the Caribbean from June 23 to 26 next year. It was host­ed in the Amer­i­c­as 12 years ago in Boston, Unit­ed States. Bethel-McKen­zie was speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence held on Fri­day at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, where an agree­ment was signed be­tween the IPI and the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Me­dia Work­ers (ACM) to host next year's event.

She said: "Whether or not crim­i­nal defama­tion is used against the me­dia is ir­rel­e­vant. "It's be­cause it's on the books all it takes is one per­son, one leader to say I don't like what that jour­nal­ist wrote or broad­cast and they can put that jour­nal­ist in jail and we do not be­lieve that jour­nal­ists should go to jail for do­ing their job. "There is no oth­er pro­fes­sion where you go to jail for do­ing your job; for get­ting up, go­ing to work and re­port­ing the facts, at least not in the num­bers that jour­nal­ists are go­ing to jail and be­ing abused and as­sault­ed around the world." ACM pres­i­dent Wes­ley Gib­bings said leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing crim­i­nal defama­tion in the Caribbean was not dor­mant and was used in is­lands like Grena­da and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

He said T&T should fol­low Ja­maica and re­form its me­dia laws es­pe­cial­ly in the area of crim­i­nal­is­ing speech and ex­pres­sion. Gib­bings said in 2007 the Ja­maica gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed a com­mis­sion to ex­am­ine that area of law and the fi­nal re­port was laid in the Par­lia­ment last year. He said the re­port in­di­cat­ed Ja­maica should do away with the law of crim­i­nal defama­tion and all oth­er pieces of leg­is­la­tion which had the ef­fects of crim­i­nal­is­ing speech and ex­pres­sion. "That re­port has since been ac­cept­ed by the Par­lia­ment of Ja­maica and a few weeks ago it was an­nounced that the leg­is­la­ture will soon be en­ter­tain­ing a bill that would seek to cor­rect the anom­alies recog­nised by the com­mis­sion," Gib­bings said.

On the is­sue of jour­nal­ists be­ing threat­ened, Bethel-McKen­zie said it was un­ac­cept­able. While she ad­mit­ted she was un­aware of any par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dent in T&T, Bethel-McKen­zie said there were peo­ple who would try to si­lence the me­dia ei­ther cloaked or pub­licly. She said threats against jour­nal­ists were un­ac­cept­able "and it doesn't re­al­ly mat­ter who it is."