Photo: Journalists from Telangana media houses protest at COP11 UN Bio-Diversity Conference
Media personnel of electronic and print media, perceived as sympathetic to the separate Telangana cause, were denied entry to the HICC to cover Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the delegates of the global biodiversity convention.
Based on passes issued to journalists earlier, fresh passes were given on Tuesday just before the start of the programme to those covering Prime Minister’s address. Scribes of T News, HMTV, Janata News, Munsiff TV and V-6 TV channels and Namaste Telangana newspaper were not allowed inside though they had valid passes.
According to one of the journalists, they were told by David Ainsworth, the Information Officer of the CBD Secretariat that their organisations’ names were not on the list provided to them and that they should check the matter with the local police.
Protesting against the treatment, 10 media personnel from those organisations staged a dharna in front of the main entrance to the Media Centre at Hitex.
Madhapur DCP Yoganand denied that police had given any instructions to prevent their entry. Ramulu of Telangana News charged the UN with violating their media rights. Mr. David Ainsworth was not available for comments when The Hindutried to reach him.
Later, more than a dozen media personnel staged a 20-minute dharna in front of the Chief Minister’s Office in the Secretariat protesting against the “anti-democratic” action. Meanwhile, the A. P. Union of Working Journalists and the Indian Journalists Union gave call for a protest rally from Desoddharaka Bhavan, Basheerbagh to gun Park near Public Gardens on Wednesday morning. (From; The Hindu)