Concord Times (Freetown)
28 April 2008
Freetown — By Ogundeji Olusegun in Monrovia, Liberia Former Liberian president on trial in The Hague is an innocent man until otherwise proven guilty, says Liberian minister of information, culture and tourism, Dr. Lawrence K. Bropleh.
"Charles Taylor is an innocent man until he is declared otherwise by the court. So the media should present reports that are devoid of speculations," he warned yesterday in Monrovia while giving his opening address at an international media training programme for 50 journalists from Sierra Leone and Liberia.
He stressed that Taylor's trial is not a child's play and everybody, including the journalists, needs to understand that.
Bropleh therefore charged journalists to understand that whatever stories they write, analyses they make and even opinions they express in the course of discharging their duties, especially when reporting about the ongoing trial, will have great implications on the public.
"The role of journalists is not to opine but to report. So they should always leave their opinions out in their reports and submit to higher ethical standards," he said.
In the end, the minister maintained that the training exercise was "an expensive venture but necessary. The task indeed is a challenge." According to organizers of the programme, Afua Hirsch of the Advocates for International Development and Doughty Street Chambers in the UK and Josephus Gray, a journalist and assistant minister designate for public affairs at Liberia's ministry of foreign affairs, journalists in the two countries have been faced with so many problems causing their inability to accurately and adequately cover Taylor's trial which has taken its toll on public interest and engagement.
The training scheduled to end on Saturday April 26 is expected to provide basic training on international tribunals and international criminal law in general; focus on the purpose of Taylor's trial and roles of prosecution and defence teams and the rights of the accused to a fair trial.
It would also discuss and address concerns about and objections to the trial including its impact on the current political and justice situation in the two countries; and equip journalists with tools needed to better manage public expectations surrounding the trial.
Charles Taylor's trial is the first case of an African head of state to be tried by an international tribunal as we have the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.
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