LAGOS, Monday, March 30, 2020: Media Rights Agenda (MRA) today condemned the increasing cases of attacks by law enforcement and security agencies on journalists covering the Coronavirus pandemic and other issues and called on the Federal Government to ensure respect for the fundamental rights of journalists and the media.
In a statement
issued in Lagos, MRA’s Programme Director, Mr. Ayode Longe, said: “We are
constrained to remind the Federal Government that it has obligations under
various international instruments which it has voluntarily acceded to,
particularly Article 66(c) of the Revised Ecowas Treaty, to ensure respect for
the rights of journalists. We are gravely concerned by the rampant cases of
attacks by law enforcement and security agents on journalists carrying out
their professional duties as well as the obstruction of such duties. This
situation is unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated.”
He cited as one of
the latest of such incidents, the attack on March 28, 2020 by an operative of
the Department of State Security (DSS) on the Imo State correspondent of
Leadership newspaper, Ms Angela Nkwo-Akpolu, while she was taking pictures of a
hotel in Owerri where guests were forcibly quarantined by security agents
allegedly because the hotel failed to comply with government’s directives on
checking the spread of COVID-19.
The DSS operative is
reported to have manhandled Ms Nkwo-Akpolu, forcibly seized a pair of
prescription eye-glasses belonging to her as well as her ipad and deleted
several pictures she had taken. The security agent stopped short of beating her
up and smashing her ipad on the ground owing to the intervention of other
journalists present at the scene.
In yet another
incident, at about 4.00am on March 30, 2020, a group of soldiers manning a
checkpoint at Mbiama, a border town between Rivers and Bayelsa States, attacked
a circulation vehicle belonging to The Punch newspaper, which was on its way to
distribute copies of the newspaper in states in the South-South zone, and
damaged the car.
According to the
driver of the vehicle, Mr Sunkanmi Olusola, when he got to Mbiama, the soldiers
stopped him and the driver of the circulation vehicle of The Nation newspaper
and refused to allow them to continue their journey. His appeal to the soldiers
to allow them leave apparently angered one of them who brought out a knife and
slashed one of the vehicle’s front tyres into shreds. Mr. Olusola said the
soldier had initially tried unsuccessfully to smash the windscreen of the
Passat Golf 3 car before deciding to use the knife to tear the tyre.
Condemning these
incidents, Mr. Longe described as tragic the frequent resort to violence and
brutality by law enforcement and security agents in their dealings with members
of the public, including journalists, without any civility or respect for the
basic constitutional rights of citizens.
He said: "these
incidents are doubly tragic because a free press and respect for the rule of
law are necessary conditions in a democracy. Unfortunately, these
security agents have consistently demonstrated that they are either not aware
of these fundamentals of democratic rule or that they have no regard for them.
This cannot be allowed to continue unchecked."
Mr. Longe noted that
at a time such as this when the world is confronting an unprecedented public
health challenge in the Coronavirus pandemic, the role of the media is more
important than ever before, given the imperative of citizens having access to
accurate information about the nature of the threat it poses and the means to
combat it, among other issues.
He argued that “In a
situation such as this, there can be no justification for these types of
actions by the Government or its law enforcement and security agencies. The
Government has a heightened responsibility to ensure that journalists and the
media are able to perform their duties. This should necessitate taking
extraordinary measures to protect journalists and their work and fully
implementing all laws aimed at ensuring that journalists and citizens have
uninhibited access to information. Unfortunately, we are constantly faced with
a situation where the Government, which should be the protector, is the
principal impediment.”
Mr. Longe called on
Yusuf Magaji Bichi, the Director General of the DSS, and Lieutenant General
Tukur Yusuf Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, to call their officers and men to
order and provide them with the necessary training about their human rights
obligations to citizens and internationally recognized acceptable modes of
engagement by law enforcement agents with citizens and civilian populations.
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