Media Workers Assoc
meets Parliament today
PHILIPSBURG--St. Maarten Media Workers Association (SMWA) will state its case against Minister Omayra Leeflang’s proposed media law to Parliament today. The Netherlands Antilles Parliament is holding its sessions in Dr. A.C. Wathey Legislative Hall in St. Maarten this week.
The proposed media law has been a hot topic of discussion in the Antilles since its tabling in Parliament. SMWA is seeking parliamentary support to have the proposed law, considered an attack on press freedom and politicians meddling in the work of the media, thrown out of Parliament.
SMWA Interim President Alfred Harley said Tuesday that the association believed the draft law was based on outdated research that had no bearing on current situations within the media.
The research was carried out more than 10 years ago and many areas have not been properly covered. Also, the proposed law is in Dutch and should be translated into English for the benefit of the Windward Islands media and people here who communicate mainly in that language, Harley stated.
The association’s board met with Leeflang on November 14, thanks to the support and help of St. Maarten Parliamentarian William Marlin of National Alliance (NA), who continues to support SMWA’s effort to get its point across to Parliament. The group also recognised Democratic Party (DP) Parliamentarian Erno Labega for his contributions.
Harley said it was good to see that in a time such as this, the media had support in Parliament, especially when the matter at hand was one of vital importance to the sustainability of democracy. “The proposed media law will undoubtedly put in place the framework for making tampering with the truth easily the order of the day if one wishes,” he said.
He added that while it was clear that there should and must always be control mechanisms in place, SMWA believed having such a thing as a Media Council with a president appointed by a minister would make it possible for the statutes that would guide the council to be based on a political agenda.
There are clearly some unresolved issues pending for years in regard to electronic/online reporting. He said there was an easier way of dealing with this: by broadening the Telecommunications Bureau’s scope of responsibility to include matters affecting independent producers, as one example.
During last week’s meeting, Leeflang shared photos with SMWA members to illustrate her point that the Curaçao media had gone too far by publishing graphic photographs of suspects in major cases.
To this, Harley said that while there had always been a question of how media professionals should deal with cases of murder and major accidents in which there were injuries or death, the media in general in St. Maarten had been very responsible when publishing such photos. Further, all examples shown by the minister were from Curaçao; therefore, this issue should be addressed on that island and no blanket approach should be forced on the entire country, Harley said.
As St. Maarten moves closer to achieving its quest of becoming a country within the Kingdom, Harley said, it would be wise to have these matters become the island’s responsibility, because the local government should have the right in such a case to determine how it wants to deal with these issues as it moves forward.
To impose a law on the Antilles now, during this dismantling phase, while there are so many other urgent matters in the area of crime and health care to be resolved “is certainly cause for concern, as someone may well be trying to work in the interest of his own personal agenda,” he said.
