Front Harsien ODZ has expressed its disappointment that the State Broadcaster “failed to report its announcement of a national protest [1] to be held next Saturday.
It has sent a formal complaint to PBS, addressed to Mr Reno Bugeja, Head of PBS Newsroom and Mr Pierre Cassar, Head of Broadcasting Authority, regarding what the Front describe as “the behaviour of Public Broadcasting Services media in reporting news items on Saturday 6th of June 2015.”
Front Harsien ODZ, has said in a statement today that “the State Broadcaster also failed to report a statement by 7 environmental NGOs (Ramblers’ Association of Malta, Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar, Friends of the Earth Malta, Din L-Art Helwa, Greenhouse -Malta, Birdlife Malta and Nature Trust Malta) supporting the protest and explaining the reason of their adhesion as well as a statement of support by Moviment Graffitti and Alternattiva Demokratika.”
The Front added that in their opinion, “this is an act of censorship aiming at suppressing news of the upcoming protest.”
The Front continued by saying that it regards this as a “denial of the right of citizens to be informed of and to adhere to the protest if they should choose to do so.”
Ir said that it also finds it in inexplicable why the public should not know that the protest is being supported by an important sector of civil society, namely the aforementioned NGOs, nor why these NGOs should not have their justification for supporting this demonstrations heard.
“The Front also does not understand why the public broadcaster has decided that the public should not know that Alternattiva Demokratika supports the protest, which thus denies the right of citizens to be able to make informed political judgements,” it said.
The Front stated that it is concerned that “under the cover of an editorial policy, which does not ‘pre-announce protests’ the public broadcaster is failing in its duty to provide a complete and informed picture to the citizens listening to its news service.”
“This is even more surprising given the fact that the news service finds time and space to run trivial news items, and while failing to announce public demonstrations which are important to the political life of the nation.”
“Front Harsien ODZ, along with the 7 NGOs, Alternattiva Demokratika and Moviment Graffitti, has thus asked for a remedy and for the suppressed press statements to be reported on the public owned media.”