NEWS  Tony Blair ask to back journalists' safety  By Alhagie Mbye, London England

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December 31, 2005
The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is being asked to help in the effort to back the safety of media practitioners around the world including those working under hostile environments in Africa and also to support a United Nations Resolution backed by the International Federation of Journalists to hunt down killers of journalists and further put them before the International Criminal Court. The Resolution says categorically that ''governments that fail to hunt down the killers of journalists should end up before the International Criminal Court''.

In a paper delivered to this correspondent by the National Union of Journalists who has been in the forefront in promoting press freedom and the liberty of media practitioners stated amongst other vital information that, the UK government was asked to assist protect journalists in danger zones. The British Government was also urged to investigate the killing and abusing of journalists world-wide. Delivering the petition to Number Ten just recently included powerful media personalities such as the Association's President Tim Lezard, Press Officer Helen Oswald, MPs John McDonnell and Austin Mitchell of the Association's Parliamentary Group, General Secretary Jeremy Dear and Jim Boumelha Chairperson of the Association Policy Committee. The Media Associations in Britain has been very active fighting the cause of a free media especially in developing countries where certain Head of States consider themselves not only as extreme despots but also number one enemies of the press. They were
 also instrumental in calling for the release of hero journalist Paul Kamara, editor of the Sierra Leone daily For Di People, who was eventually freed after 14months in prison in a controversial conviction under the so-called 'Public Order Act' as a result of an action brought by President Kabbah over an article reporting that a commission of inquiry has found the President Kabbah guilty of fraud in 1968 when he was still a permanent secretary in the Trade Ministry. The Freetown Appeal Court finally overturned his two-year sentences for ''seditious defamation''.

Earlier journalists who spoke to this correspondent after the end of an interesting course entitled the ''Freedom of Information Act'', a law in which journalists are empowered not only with the weapon to dig out stories of public interest but also have the constitutional right to obtain vital information in the form of papers, files, disk or any form of electronic for publication acknowledged that journalists must be treated fairly regardless from where they are operating from.

The Act also revealed that public officials who failed to abide by the law by refusing to help the press with its work could be prosecuted. The course that took place in the city of Manchester and attended by reporters and editors from various parts of the country expressed the importance of press freedom the world over. Journalists who spoke to this correspondent regarding the petition to Mr. Blair have the conviction that with the aggressive nature of such high placed people in British society including outspoken Members of Parliament lobbying for press freedom, those found victimising journalists in Africa will soon start to re-think again.
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