Accusing Cabinet Ministers of employing a strategy “to ensure that they avoid accounting to the public as to their overall handling of this crisis”, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar, in another statement on Thursday morning accused the government of trying to “politicize these news conferences with the clear intention of destabilizing the media’s Constitutionally enshrined rights.  

   It is also contrary to the public and national interest, violates our Constitutional tenets and poses a very serious threat to our democracy and is an ongoing blatant and very dangerous attempts by the Government to stifle the traditional media of Trinidad and Tobago.” the opposition leader said.

Mrs Bissessar said that so far, the media has highlighted:

·  The questionable and contradictory positions of the Government regarding the controversial issue of repatriating stranded citizens abroad

·    The very dangerous, unsanitary conditions of the quarantine facilities, including hospitals and private facilities, being used by Government to treat COVID-19 patients

·  The fact that citizens are now petrified to submit themselves for COVID testing due to very valid fears of ending up in these hellish facilities

·   The ongoing plight of the countless citizens who are suffering serious financial setbacks due to insufficient relief grants, and the overwhelming State bureaucracy in accessing them

·  The fact that quarantine facilities have essentially turned into jail sentences for patients, including children, which is a violation of citizens’ Constitutional rights

·   The use of taxpayers’ dollars to fund several questionable Government initiatives.

   “For this commendable national service, these valuable essential workers from media establishments are now being unfairly targeted in the following ways,” she continued, adding :

·  Senior Cabinet Ministers attack and bully reporters and editors for simply writing stories/editorials/columns or asking questions that are not to their liking.

·  Political operatives reported to be on the State’s payroll, subject media practitioners to unbridled, unwarranted, merciless and very damaging personal and professional attacks on an almost daily basis via social media.

·   This is all a very blatant, dangerous attempt to intimidate and silence the media’s (and by extension, our country’s) Constitutional rights to freedom of the press and freedom of expression

·  It also potentially puts media practitioners, and their families, under severe undue mental and emotional stress.

·   This is all ultimately tantamount to illegal harassment of citizens in the execution and performance of their jobs.

  Now, it has worryingly gone a step further since cabinet Ministers have now given these allegedly paid Government political propagandists unfettered access to their daily media conferences.

  ‘The Ministers strategically stifle probing questions from journalists and use their alleged propaganda agents to nakedly push the Government’s questionable political agenda, under the guise of posing questions,” the opposition leader said.

   “ I wish to point out that all Government news conferences, along with every other State event, are wholly funded by taxpayers’ dollars and cabinet Ministers therefore have a duty to conduct them in a manner that represents the interests of ALL citizens,” Mrs Bissessar noted.

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