Confinement of press professionals: Some journalists are making the step up13/01/2010 | 13:31:49
In response to the confinements of Radio Fahazavana station's reporter and director, a new crisis cell has been created by journalists.
The world of press is boiling again. The situation has been getting tenser since journalist Radio Fahazavana's reporter Lolo Ratsimba, and director, Didier Ravoahangiarison's jail sentence related to the Support Regiment's aborted mutiny back to the end of December.
Journalists have erected a crisis cell anew. Some professionals already met the Justice minister to require the immediate and unconditional release of their colleagues.
Judicial authorities are avoiding to openly linking both of Radio Fahazavana's reporters’ custody to breach of press rules. Lolo Ratsimba is charged with "complicity" in a mutiny case, for having failed to alarm the authorities although being the first outsider on the scene at 04:00 a.m.
The Justice's argument is definitely being rejected by journalists making it a cover for hindrances of press freedom. "Can a scoop, now, drive into jail?" regretted a journalist. Lolo Ratsimba and his director have not been the first reporters sent in jail since Andry Rajoelina's led putsch. In April 2009, Radio Mada's Evariste Ramanantsoavina, jailed by the High Authority of Transition, has celebrated his third week behind bars.
Reporters have been especially invited together with artists and Malagasy sport figures to greet the president of the High Authority of Transition. Rufin Rakotomaharo, the latest president of the Journalists´ Order, produced a speech on behalf of his colleagues, in which he called upon more press freedom, the authorization to reopen TV and radio stations closed by the ruling power and the ending of the so called press crimes[See]
The TV PLUS private media station received an official warning letter. A reporter is being wanted by the state police, and not any of the stations silenced in the aftermaths of the year 2009´s putsch have been allowed to broadcast again. Hard days for the press.[See]
A number of reporters are currently in the communication ministry´s sight in the run of its intention to restore “order” in the press. The ministry´s ethics commission is so far being acting since some weeks. Minister Harry Rahajason met some of the capital city´s reporters and declared that sanctions are likely to sanction any violation of ethics and laws.[See]
Poor first step in for the Communication Ministry´s Ethics Committee. The election of the committee´s president supposed to endorse the Journalists´ order´s leadership, had to be postponed, for some members defected[See]
The minister in charge of communication is considering the erection of an ethics committee deemed to temporarily overtake the journalists’ order’s prerogatives up to the election of a new board[See]
