Yemen Monitor/Newsroom:
Reporters from news websites and local and international channels in Taiz (southwestern Yemen) boycotted a press conference held by the local authority in the governorate.
The reporters cited the wording of the invitation itself as the reason for their refusal to participate in the press conference. The invitation included a coercive directive for journalists to partner with the local authority, which contradicts the role of the media as a fourth estate that plays a supervisory and accountability role, conveys the questions of citizens and observers, and listens to the figures, statistics, and documents that the authority is obligated to provide.
The journalists explained in a statement that “the press conference is nothing but an attempt to give false legitimacy to an authority that has lost its credibility and the legitimacy of achievement that raises any authority in such exceptional circumstances.”
The statement accused “officials in the Taiz authority of practicing corrupt policies in a systematic way in the management of the governorate’s affairs, through their failure to provide basic services to citizens, but rather the outbreak of epidemics and unprecedented numbers of deaths.”
The journalists said that they “refuse to be partners in the process of deception and misinformation, or tools to pass corrupt agendas or to give a false picture of the tragic reality of Taiz.”
The boycotting journalists called on “colleagues in the profession to adhere to their ethical, humanitarian and professional principles, and not to participate in an event whose misleading content and contradiction with the necessary treatments are known in advance.”
