UN official rules that the Government's gag order against The Royal Gazette was wrong
By Owain Johnston-Barnes
The UN Commissioner for Human Rights said that a gag order issued by the Premier was contrary to human rights and national legislation.
The statement was revealed last night at a public forum hosted by the Human Rights Commission (HRC), who wrote to Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay in May after Dr. Ewart Brown instructed his press secretary to reduce contact with The Royal Gazette and it's late sister paper, The Mid-Ocean News.
The gag order, which the Premier stated was intended to "prevent a total breakdown of communication between the Premier's office and these publications," no longer appears to be in place.
The UN Commissioner was quoted by HRC Chairwoman Venous Memari as saying: "Any directive banning an institution or government's department from relating with a specific newspaper would be contrary to human rights and indeed your national legislation."
Ms Memari said that the statement had also been sent to the Premier.
While Royal Gazette editor Bill Zuill welcomed the UN statement, lawyer Wendell Hollis argued that the UN official could have been told only one side of the issue.
"Information like that is only as good as the information they were given," said Mr. Hollis.
"As far as I know, they never came to Bermuda. They have no idea what the situation was."
Mr. Hollis also theorised that the move by Government might have been sparked because the Government viewed The Royal Gazette not as a newspaper, but as a mouthpiece for the opposition, a claim that Mr. Zuill refuted.
"I've been reporting since 1981," said Mr. Zuill. "For 17 years, I spent most of my time chasing the UBP, working on what they did wrong.
"This claim that we're holding hands is quite simply nonsense. If there was a change in government tomorrow, we would chase them the same way we chase the current government."
He also said that he and the Premier have been trying to organise a meeting.
"I don't want this fight. I didn't pick it. I'd rather be having friendly debates rather than having this toxicity."
The forum, moderated by Rick Richardson, tackled the issues of responsible journalism and freedom of expression.
As the sole daily newspaper, Ms Memari said that The Royal Gazette had a monumental responsibility for unbiased journalism, one not shared in many other parts of the world.
Mr. Zuill agreed that a political lean in The Royal Gazette could be harmful to the community.
"Given our size, and given that we're the only daily newspaper, I don't feel we can take that approach, and frankly that's not the type of journalism I want to practice anyway.
"The emphasis for us is very clearly on fairness and accuracy.
"The risk is to be balanced in everything you do, it requires a suspension of judgement and of what would be important to readers. You stop reporting and become, essentially, a typist."
Mr. Hollis said that while he also supported the freedom of the press, he said that the responsibility of the press was equally important.
"You cannot lose sight of the fact that the press wields a great amount of power," said Mr. Hollis.
"They can make people darlings of the press, or they can make them public pariahs, and once they've done that, it's almost impossible for someone to bring themselves back.
"They have an obligation to find the facts and not just rush to judgement in the court of public opinion."
While Mr. Zuill stood by the newspaper's accuracy, he said that the Island's media are considering the introduction of a press complaints council, which would work to address many of the issues broached during the forum.
"It's something that we in the small media world here are discussing and talking about now," said Mr. Zuill. "Those discussions are continuing, we're working on something. There probably is room for something like that.
"I hope it would be used very little. All the media here do work very hard in terms of getting stories right."
