A few months ago, when Dr. Brown started his self-proclaimed “war” on the Royal Gazette, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) was one of the first organisations to speak out. They were answered by some condescending blahblah from the Cabinet Office.
Unfortunately, most Bermudians seem inclined to accept these brush offs from the autocrats. This is not the case with the media freedom watchdogs like IAPA who have returned to the subject of Bermuda:
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gonzalo Marroquín, declared that “the reasons for the government’s action must be transparent and be based on independent sources and not on mere subjective opinions, meaning that public funds or resources will be handled efficiently”.
Marroquín, editor of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Prensa Libre, added, “As we made clear earlier, so long as there is no transparency in the placement of official advertising we will continue thinking that The Royal Gazette is being penalized for its editorial stance”.
(More coverage on this here).
Dr. Brown’s supporters seem to think that retribution against the local media is acceptable. It is not, and most other countries around the world have seen media clampdowns are normally part of a larger erosion of transparency and accountability.
This is not even a blurred situation. International treaties are very clear on the matter:
No news medium nor journalist may be punished for publishing the truth or criticizing or denouncing the government.
Tariff and exchange policies, licenses for the importation of paper or news-gathering equipment, the assigning of radio and television frequencies and the granting or withdrawal of government advertising may not be used to reward or punish the media or individual journalists.
The list of watchdogs that have criticized the Bermuda Government’s action now includes the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, the Index on Censorship, the UK Press Gazette, Reporters Without Borders, IFEX, the International Freedom of Expression eXchange, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), Sunshine Week/ American Society of Newspaper Editors and the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum.
That’s serious stuff and this issue will not go away. It will continue to attract negative attention to Bermuda because … well … it deserves it!
By forging a “cult of coverup” in Bermuda, the PLP is merely driving people to ask “what is there to hide?”
