22 May 2010
BEIRUT: A draft law presented to Parliament in the aim of guaranteeing people the right to information was discussed during a conference on Friday, in the presence of Information Minister Tarek Mitri.
The conference on the draft law and on investigative journalism was organized by the National Network to Reinforce the Right to Information, and the local media training organization Maharat.
Mitri praised the proposal on the right to know, which he said “has nothing to do with politics and which gathers MPs from different affiliations.”
The minister said the problem in Lebanon was not the lack of information, but the way information was made available.
He then warned journalists that even though access to information could be facilitated, their principal and difficult job remained: to investigate.
The draft law was the result of cooperation between several MPs, ministries, unions and civil society organizations, and is a part of the process of Lebanon’s ratifying the UN Convention against Corruption.
The draft law’s goals include respecting the people’s right to information in order to reinforce transparency and fight corruption, in addition to providing journalists with easy access to information.
Maharat spokesperson and journalist Aline Farhat explained that Lebanon still lacked a law that determined the government’s policy on acquiring information and Lebanese officials were still inclined not to disclose any information related to the public. “The media sector is in considerable need of such a law,” she added.
Metn MP Ghassan Mokheiber, who heads the National Network to Reinforce the Right to Information, stressed that the people’s right to know was a fundamental human right and was the basis of monitoring the government and fighting corruption.
Several journalists then shared their experiences and regretted that media outlets faced an array of problems when seeking to acquire information.
Yasser Ghazi, from state run Tele-Liban, commented that media outlets received the same information, but process it in different ways, which often confuses the public.
For his part, Imad Zoghbi from the daily As-Safir, said local media outlets were often afraid of upsetting certain parties, and that many journalists practiced self-censorship during their work. – The Daily Star
Copyright The Daily Star 2010.
