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This Day journalists receive threats
2006-04-14 08:50:02
By Pacifique Nkeshimana
Editors and journalists at ThisDay, and the weekly KULIKONI newspapers have received threats on their lives from some individuals, warning them against reporting on graft in public institutions, the management of the publications revealed yesterday.
Addressing a press conference, in Dar es Salaam, Managing Editor Simeon Ileta, attributed the threats to ’well-researched’ investigative exposes the newspapers have serialized on embezzlement of public money in the recent past.
Ileta said the threats were aimed at intimidating, and cowing his journalists and editors from carrying out investigative work, and publishing stories that expose the rot and graft in public institutions.
He cited an incident where one of the reporters was attacked in his house last Wednesday.
’The incident seemed to be a kind of organised theft but it was not. An unidentified liquid was spread on the window of the house, and a branch of a tree was left hanging on the window,’ he said, adding that the incident was reported at the Magomeni Police Station and was filed with an RB number MAG/8677/06.
Ileta also disclosed that two people, whom he did not name, attempted to bribe journalists at the media house, with huge sums of money.
’Very recently, someone used our reporter’s friend to attempt and convince him (the reporter) to accept an amount exceeding 20m/- so that the reporter stops publishing some investigative stories,’ he said.
The reporter, however, declined to accept the offer.
Ileta at the same time challenged journalists to stick to their professional ethics while carrying out duties in order to positively impact on the society.
’Journalists should not accept to be corrupted, receive bribes and other favours provided by perverted individuals as a compromise to stop exposing the ills in the society,’ he said.
He cautioned that carrying out investigative reporting was a risky venture, suggesting that journalists should be prepared to meet deviants who would try to corrupt, harass and intimidate them in order to discourage them from telling the truth.
Ileta said his papers’ policy was to conduct investigations and inform the public about the truth on how few individuals had accumulated wealth through graft.
He also cautioned that threats against journalists might soon be directed at other media houses.
He therefore asked the media in the country to treat threat against any journalist as their own, as the corrupt individuals are now fighting back.
’If we really have to rid our society of crimes and corruption, we in the media must be on the forefront in the war,’ he advised.
For a strong united front, Ileta urged the journalists to form and strengthen a professional union through which they would be able to agitate claim for their rights, including good salary packages.
He said: ’Media are profit-making organisations. They will never think of improving your life style unless you form and enhance a union.’
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