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Media personnel attacked while covering COVID story

by

#meta[ag-author]
20200325211336
20200325
Members of the media who were attacked while shooting footage at the San Fernando General Hospital speak to officials of SWRHA after the incident, yesterday.

Members of the media who were attacked while shooting footage at the San Fernando General Hospital speak to officials of SWRHA after the incident, yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

SASCHA WIL­SON

Mem­bers of the me­dia were phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly as­sault­ed by se­cu­ri­ty guards at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day. TV6 video jour­nal­ist Cindy Raghubar-Teekas­ingh and Che Teekas­ingh were stand­ing at the car park record­ing footage of a COVID-19 screen­ing area near the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment when they were ac­cost­ed by the guards. There have been sim­i­lar as­saults on me­dia per­son­nel by se­cu­ri­ty guards at the hos­pi­tal over the years.

A vis­i­bly shak­en Raghubar-Teekas­ingh said al­though the car park is a pub­lic place she still in­formed two of­fi­cials from the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (SWRHA) Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment that they were on the com­pound.

“While record­ing one se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer came up to us and told us we can­not be here. We told him we can and we had per­mis­sion. He was very ag­gres­sive to­wards us, start­ed push­ing our cam­eras away and threat­en­ing to call oth­er peo­ple.”

Know­ing that they were with­in their rights, she said they con­tin­ued do­ing their job. “Then two oth­er se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers came. The oth­er was very ag­gres­sive to the TTT cam­era per­son. He threat­ened to ar­rest us and then he said he is go­ing to come back with a ba­ton if we didn’t lis­ten. He did that. He left and came back with a ba­ton.

“He was swing­ing the ba­ton in front of the TTT cam­era per­son at which point I start­ed record­ing the or­deal.

That’s when a fe­male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer came up to me and pushed my cam­era. She grabbed the lens and was twist­ing it. She then pro­ceed­ed to grab my left hand. I told her to let me go.

“I was try­ing to record her at that time, she got more ag­gres­sive. She then took my hand and placed it to the back of me. She grabbed my oth­er hand and put it to the back of me. So I was in a choke-hold ba­si­cal­ly. The grip was very tight.”

She said when oth­er peo­ple start­ed record­ing the in­ci­dent, the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer re­leased her. Teekas­ingh said a male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer was block­ing his cam­era and de­mand­ing that they leave the com­pound. “We said sir are we al­lowed to be on the com­pound we are in a pub­lic space.”

He said an­oth­er of­fi­cer pushed him and he in turn pushed away the of­fi­cer’s hand. He said the of­fi­cer grabbed his cam­era, then left and re­turned with a ba­ton and be­gan hit­ting the cam­era which was still record­ing. Teekas­ingh called on the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) to take ac­tion against the guards. When oth­er me­dia ar­rived, the se­cu­ri­ty guards al­so cau­tioned them against tak­ing pho­tographs or video record­ings.

CNC3’s video jour­nal­ist Ivan Toolsie was al­so as­sault­ed by a fe­male guard. SWRHA’s of­fi­cials came short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent and in­di­cat­ed that mem­bers of the me­dia were al­lowed on that area of the com­pound. A trau­ma­tised Teekas­ingh com­plained about ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pains to her wrists and in­di­cat­ed that she may have to seek med­ical treat­ment. They were un­cer­tain whether their equip­ment was dam­aged. A re­port was made at the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion. The South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty sub­se­quent­ly is­sued a state­ment stat­ing that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched to un­der­stand the cir­cum­stances which led to the un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent. Ac­cord­ing to the SWRHA, it will then de­ter­mine the ap­pro­pri­ate and nec­es­sary course of ac­tion to fol­low. Ex­press­ing re­gret that the in­ci­dent oc­curred, the SWRHA re­stat­ed its com­mit­ment to re­spect for free­dom of the press.

The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T called on the po­lice and SWRHA to deal with swift­ly and force­ful­ly the as­sault on me­dia per­son­nel by the hos­pi­tal’s con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.


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