Reporters confiding into foreign representations12/02/2010 | 11:48:51
A rather special work session was held in the Carlton hotel. It was the Malagasy reporters' occasion to openly display their profession's difficulties indulged in by the political crisis to Antananarivo's diplomatic bodies.
Many journalists confirmed that they are repeatedly being threatened. "Your turn behind bars has come", so reads the usual text messages recieved by some reporters on their mobiles.
Some twenty reporters were present during the session. Most of the capital city's foreign embassies sent their representatives to this meeting. Four journalists work in various regions of the country were there too.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Malagasy press has been becoming a shadow of its former self. Three reporters have been jailed in less than one year. Now, journalists Lolo Ratsimba, as well as the Fahazavàna radio station, Didier Ravoahangiarison, are still behind bars. They are charged as accomplices of December's aborted RAS camp's mutiny.
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]
