Dili, December 11, 2024 (Média Democracia) – The Association of Timor-Leste Journalists (AJTL) in collaboration with the Asia Foundation held training for journalists from Imprime, Online and Audiovisual media in order to improve and strengthen their knowledge in the field of Human Rights coverage.
Previously, AJTL had provided the first stage of training for Community Radio journalists, in the second stage it provided training to online media journalists with a total of 23 people consisting of 13 women and 10 men on November 29-30, 2024, then in the third stage it facilitated female journalists on December 6-7, 2024. AJTL continued facilitating the third stage of training for 25 female journalists which ended on December 7, 2024 at the Fokupers Hall, Dili.
AJTL President Zevonia Viera said that AJTL received funding from the Asia Foundation to provide training on Human Rights in order to increase the capacity of journalists when covering the field.
“How is your knowledge about covering cases of sexual harassment against women, about press freedom, laws related to journalists’ rights, about digital rights, how to make inclusive journalism coverage, about disabilities, religion, how they can show story that is not far from human rights.” Said AJTL President, Zenovia Viera
She said, AJTL encourages its members to capacitate the quality of knowledge about human rights perspectives because it is as fundamental rights of human.
“Everyone needs to understand how to defend, protect and prevent these issues and how to increase coverage related to sensitive issues, so AJTL appeals to participants after this training to hope that your news production, through audiovisual radio, online and newspapers can write articles and story that are important for the public to read.” She said.
Especially for the State, Government, Civil Society and all levels of society to understand that the important issue that needs to be addressed is that all entities share responsibility related to problems such as domestic violence, sexual harassment or other sensitive issues that result in injustice or violence against others.
She hopes that through this training, female journalists will have the ability to write good news or story.
“Through this training, especially female journalists have the ability to write well, when they write well and with quality, the public will be proud of what they write and the stories they produce, hopefully this training inspires you to improve your intelligence, to become quality journalists in Timor Leste.” She said.
She informed that this year some journalists became victims because of their role when reporting in public spaces.
“We saw that two female journalists experienced intimidation and threats from the leadership and the police had detained journalists, that means our press freedom has fallen, we who were previously in the top 10 in the global have now dropped to 20, this is a threat to us, therefore through this training we hope that you can understand the rights of journalists, how we all fight together for press freedom and freedom of expression in our coverage areas.” She added.
Even though it concerns important issues, journalists can speak from a human rights perspective. When they see journalists becoming victims in news coverage, it means freedom, because the state and the RDTL constitution guarantee freedom of the press. When journalists become victims, they must pay attention and have a human rights perspective there.
Therefore, AJTL feels saddened by the many situations where journalists are starting to experience intimidation on digital platforms.
In this ocassion Joanina Casimiro as a participant expressed her gratitude for Asia Foundation because collaborate with AJTL to held training on human right, so as journalists can know about coverage right.
“I would like to express my gratitude for being able to attend the training on Human Rights and Journalism for fellow journalists, through this training we can learn about the rights of journalists to report in the field related to Human Rights issues, so that we can write news and produce quality news, especially those with a human rights perspective.” She said.
Because we know that the country of RDTL adheres to a democratic system in which every citizen is free to enjoy their freedom without pressure from others, especially in relation to journalism which means freedom of the press and freedom of expression as mandated in this Constitution itself.
She said that through this training, we can all broaden our horizons to use our rights as journalists to obtain information credibly and fairly.
“We know that the task of journalists is not far from the journalistic code of ethics, therefore, regarding human rights issues, we can take information and cover it for the community and government without having to judge the source or the community concerned, especially issues related to human rights violence,” She added.
In this training, female journalists also receive material provisions such as sexual harassment, how to automatically defend themselves when covering news in the field, because female journalists are at risk of journalistic work when covering news, in addition, participants also receive material on digital rights related to journalistic work.
Reported by : Estefania
Picture by : Estefania