By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The House of Parliament and the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists have agreed on new terms for accreditation of journalists to cover proceedings in Parliament.
A cross section of SLAJ executives met with the Clerk of Parliament, Umar Paran Tarawally on the possible relaxation of its recently announced requirement for the accreditation of journalists.
The engagement comes after the Guild of Editors condemned the Clerk’s office, accusing it of “stifling press freedom” and attempting to “censor” the work of journalists in Parliament.
On Wednesday, reporters said they were barred from covering any news event in parliament whiles the talks were ongoing.
The Parliament’s administration has complained for years that some journalists were not covering the legislature as they should, citing concerns of “un-professionalism” and “under-reporting”.
The Clerk’s office had asked journalists to apply for accreditation and those who had applied to send in copies of documents like their birth certificates, academic qualifications, copy of their media institution’s license to operate and even a two year minimum experience in journalism was listed as a requirement.
In a statement from the Guild of Newspaper Editors on Monday, it states: “…we note that setting out such eligibility criteria for journalists is tantamount to an unjustified restriction of their access to parliamentary proceedings.”
Under the new arrangement, SLAJ, Parliament and the Independent Media Commission will all be part of an accreditation committee which will be responsible to develop new criteria.
Secretary General of SLAJ, Asmieu Bah, told Politico that whiles they understood Parliament’s motivation to get an accreditation system in place, the major disagreement was on how they were going around it.
“We all went to the drawing board and we told them that we appreciated the fact that they wanted to have an accreditation process and maintain standard. But we also didn’t agree that they should be the ones to fix the criteria. So a joint press release will be coming out soon detailing the new set of criteria,” Bah said.
In a statement from the Public Relations and Information department in Parliament, the Deputy Director, Sheku Lamin Turay, said:
“Parliament has no intention to gag the press, but it believes in professionalism and accurate reporting on its proceedings.”
Copyright © 22/05/20 Politico Online
