By: Mariama Njie
The Gambia Press Union in its quest to find an ending solution to the bullying and safety of journalists in the country, Thursday, engaged representatives from political parties on safety of journalists and access to information ahead of the 2021 presidential election, GPU members believe that the environment is not safe for them to operate.
The seminar brought together representative from all registered political parties in The Gambia and members of the Gambia Press Union.
Speaking during the opening ceremony, Lamin Jahateh Program Manager of Gambia Press Union said the meeting is part of a project they are implementing on access to information on election and ensuring safety of journalists.
“We know election is approaching and as far as the safety analysis of the GPU is concern, we realized that the environment is not the best friendly for journalists and most of the attacks against the media since the change of regime more than half of them are perpetrated by political party supporters,” he said.
But we do know this is happening not because they hate journalists perhaps it’s because lack of understanding of each other’s role, he added.
Jahateh went on saying for that reason they felt it necessary to engage political parties, “we will explain to them how we do our work as journalists and they will do the same so that at the end of the day we will agree on a mutual point that perhaps ahead of the election we will start seeing each other as partners.”
He revealed that the GPU conducted an analysis of the political parties as far as access to communication challenges is concern that many of the political parties in The Gambia don’t have website.
“Because our analysis was taking the African union guideline on access to information on election as a benchmark and one of the basic tools on the access to information guideline and election is that political parties should make information accessible by having a website where their constitution will be there for their members and the wider public to know,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Sambujang Njie chief executive officer of Independent Electoral Commission in his keynote statement commended Gambia press union for holding a seminar on the safety of journalists and access to information. Adding that, “it is importance for journalists and political parties to dialogue that information will be made accessible to them.”
Moving on, he said the independent electoral commission is committed to making information accessible to all and they have very active website where almost all relevant information is disseminated.
However, “the media should also endeavor to report fairly and accurately without being bias, some of the media the way they report on other political parties would show bias, therefore they should be balance, fair and accurate in reporting.”
“My message to the public is that let them go out and register in their own communities and should resist from interfering in the registration process because no one has the right to banned another from registering,” he appealed.