By Philip Buda Ladu
The Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Edmund Yakani has welcomed a call by the Chairperson of Information Committee at the TNLA to launch investigation into brief detention of Journalists at the parliament last month.
He applauded the statement made by the Chairperson of the Information, Telecommunication and Postal Services Committee in the Parliament that they want to investigate the detention of the journalists that happened last month in the parliament.
Yakani said the detention was arbitrary because the journalists have not committed any mistake in order to deserve them to be detained or interrogated.
“As journalists, their going to the parliament was through an invitation of which some parliamentarians were trying to express their concerns and journalists were invited to cover so there was no any crime that journalists have done, unfortunately journalists ended up as victims to be detained arbitrarily by our security forces,” Yakani said.
“So, I would like to take this opportunity by welcoming the position of the Chairperson of Information Committee. I hope the investigation will be taken seriously and should be done in a transparent way and we want to make sure that those who were behind the detention of the journalists be held accountable,” Yakani stressed.
The CEPO’s Executive Director said parliament is supposed to be a public house that everybody can access whether one is invited or not invited.
He argued that access to the parliament should not be restricted. “We have seen these day restrictions in that sense that there is deployment of huge number of security in the parliament and journalists are always threatened and intimidated whenever they want to access the parliament to connect whatever is going to the parliament with the public through the media outlets,” he added.
Yakani underscored that as he welcomes the call for the investigation, he also wished that the call should be taken into practice to ensure that the perpetrators or those behind the detention are held accountable.