Filed in by Olando Testimony Zeongar – 0776819983/0880-361116/life2short4some@yahoo.com
Monrovia – Punch FM/TV, Online Service through its management team at the One Media Incorporated, has announced that it will boycott a meeting called by Liberian president George Weah inviting media executives to confer with him on Friday, 28 December 2018.
In a statement released Thursday, One Media Incorporated emphatically declared that it will not attend or be represented in any way at the president’s called meeting with media practitioners, stating that it was doing so in direct protest to the Weah-led government’s undeserved attacks on the Liberian media and by extension an undemocratic onslaught on the freedom of the press and free speech.
The Punch FM/TV, Online Service statement comes at the heels of multiple attacks from government officials against journalists in the country.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Information Lenn Eugene Nagbe slammed the umbrella organization of journalists in the country, the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), after the Union condemned recent waves of threats emanating from government against the media, with Nagbe describing the PUL as a “useless” institution that does not know its function.
Recently, in reaction to a FronPageAfrica report, Finance and Development Planning Minister, Samuel Tweah threatened that he would “weaponize” crusaders of the CDC to deal with what he calls “mistruth and falsehood” in the media.
Also, the closest cabinet minister to the president and the Liberian leader’s chief of office staff, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Nathaniel McGill characterized FronPageAfrica and the Liberian media as “criminal entities that are bent on tarnishing the reputations of people, ”
But in its statement Punch FM/TV, Online Service insisted that it will not sit in the same room to talk with a president who has remained conspicuously quiet on attacks meted out against journalists and media institutions, and in some instances, where some of these very attacks were incited by inflammatory and derogatory comments against the media from the president himself, adding that doing so “would mean sanctioning the Weah administration’s ‘war against the free press,’ which we believe is a clever but cruel attempt aimed at quashing critical views.”
Instead, the Punch FM/TV, Online Service management team proposed that President Weah sets up a meeting with his officials, some of whom One Media Incorporated said are “attacking the media and threatening to “weaponize” his political party zealots and extremists of the Congress for Democratic Change to go after journalists.”
“In that proposed meeting with his officials, the president needs to call off his all-purpose attack dogs and warn them that journalists are not ‘enemies of the state’, rather a government and its officials who fail the public trust by indulging in misfeasance and malfeasance are the real ‘enemies of the state.’ He also needs to let his officials know that to continue to attack the media is dangerous to the lifeblood of our fledgling democracy and is also totally inimical to the sustenance of the country’s hard-earned peace,” One Media Incorporated further stated.
The statement continued: “We also like to state herein, that the government’s unending review process of what it calls “The regulatory regime” of the Liberian media is another form of attack against the freedom of the press, and as such we are calling on the Weah-led government to immediately abort its ploy intended to stifle a select-portion of the media, and unconditionally lift the ban for media institutions it placed an embargo on since June this year, to begin to do their jobs.”
The Punch FM/TV, Online Service says it is particularly calling on government to immediately refrain from withholding its operating license and broadcast permit, noting that it has met all requirements under the laws of Liberia to operate as a legitimate media institution.
“To constantly prevent Punch 106.7 FM and TV from broadcasting is undemocratic and is a form of media censoring to the highest degree, as what this does is to deny millions of Liberians access to information and their right to be heard,” the statement read.
The statement concluded: “Management further says by government preventing Punch FM/TV from broadcasting, it also hinders the institution’s resolve to provide jobs for several Liberians and to create an unfettered space for all to be heard, as well as making leaders of the country to know that they do not get to choose to whom they are accountable, as they are accountable to the citizenry – “We intend to hold any and all officials of government to it, and to do anything less is to neglect our sacred duty to our country.”
In January of 2018, One Media Incorporated met all requirements under Liberian laws to operate as a bonafide media entity, having been cleared by government and issued broadcast license and operations permit.
But in June, the Weah administration prevented the station from coming on air, citing a review of the country’s media sector as its basis. However, several months has elapsed and the government is yet to state when its review process will be concluded, something which One Media Incorporated believes is entirely intended to target, prevent and sabotage Punch FM/TV from broadcasting.
The Management of Punch/FM/TV, Online Service is of the belief that government’s move to make its review process perpetual without doing the internally accepted standard of setting a time-line to such exercise, is merely on account of a perceived notion that the station is anti-government and will espouse critical and damning views against President Weah and the establishment, “for this is what we are gathering from surrogates and operatives of this government,” the management said in a letter to U.S. Ambassador to Liberia, Christine Elder in late June.
