The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MATT) has called on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to swift­ly in­ves­ti­gate threats of mur­der, phys­i­cal as­sault, nui­sance le­gal ac­tion and cy­ber bul­ly­ing against jour­nal­ists.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so called on State-owned me­dia house CN­MG to end slan­der­ous and defam­a­to­ry con­tri­bu­tions from callers and im­me­di­ate­ly ef­fect re­spon­si­ble mod­er­at­ing on-air by its pre­sen­ters.

This fol­lows ver­bal at­tacks on­line and threats of phys­i­cal at­tacks by po­lit­i­cal par­ty sup­port­ers to­ward jour­nal­ists.

While MATT fo­cussed main­ly on jour­nal­ists who had made po­lice re­ports on the threats, many oth­er jour­nal­ists re­ceive threats and ha­rass­ment from po­lit­i­cal par­ty sup­port­ers reg­u­lar­ly.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the MATT ex­ec­u­tive ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with jour­nal­ists who had been and con­tin­ued to be sub­ject­ed to in­tim­i­da­tion, slan­der, defama­tion and bul­ly­ing in broad­cast me­dia and on so­cial me­dia.

"MATT takes note of the nu­mer­ous jour­nal­ists from var­i­ous me­dia hous­es tar­get­ed for vi­cious at­tacks on-air and on­line.

We are deeply con­cerned about on­go­ing threats to free and open me­dia cov­er­age, in­clud­ing threats of mur­der, phys­i­cal as­sault, cy­ber bul­ly­ing and nui­sance le­gal ac­tion against jour­nal­ists that un­du­ly lim­it their free­dom of ex­pres­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the elec­tion sea­son."

MATT made three re­quests of the Po­lice Ser­vice, in­clud­ing swift­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing the re­port made by Ex­press in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Denyse Renne on June 15, 2015, and the threat re­port­ed by Ex­press in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Asha Javeed in Oc­to­ber 2013 and two se­ri­ous re­ports of cy­ber at­tacks filed al­so by Javeed this year.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so called on the po­lice to out­line its polic­ing pol­i­cy on cy­ber bul­ly­ing which it said had be­come a per­ilous, far-reach­ing threat to Trinidad and To­ba­go's de­mo­c­ra­t­ic land­scape.

"Pro­tect­ing free­dom of ex­pres­sion, pre­vent­ing at­tacks on work­ing jour­nal­ists by hold­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties and lead­ers to ac­count and pro­mot­ing open de­bate by all cit­i­zens is al­so the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the TTPS. The TTPS must prompt­ly in­ves­ti­gate such at­tacks when they do oc­cur and bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice.

MATT said it recog­nised that in­cum­bent gov­ern­ments ben­e­fit­ted from dis­pro­por­tion­ate me­dia cov­er­age, from their con­trol of state-owned me­dia hous­es and of­ten from of their wider eco­nom­ic reach.

"This places an ad­di­tion­al du­ty of care on State-owned me­dia to act re­spon­si­bly.

MATT in­sists that Gov­ern­ment and lead­ers of all po­lit­i­cal par­ties must make clear their ze­ro tol­er­ance for sup­port­ers who slan­der, de­fame and threat­en jour­nal­ists. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties can­not con­tin­ue to re­main silent while at­tacks against jour­nal­ists are launched and sus­tained in their name."