Need to organize events that aim to promote press freedom: official
HRW calls on authorities to look into working conditions of workers
KUWAIT CITY, April 5, (KUNA): A senior Kuwaiti media official underlined Wednesday the significance of conferences and events aiming at the promotion of the press freedom.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a conference on media freedom in the Arab world, Undersecretary of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information Tareq Al-Merzem said media promotion gatherings reflect the spirit of the Kuwaiti constitution where press freedom is enshrined.
The Ministry of Information is eager to support all events and fora that are meant to promote the media freedom, the official added.
These conferences are considered a major supporter of the media professionalism, he said, adding that he is so proud of the Kuwaiti press which plays a key role in the Middle East media scene.
The undersecretary considered these gatherings and events a good opportunity for the conferees to share experience in the media field.
He hoped that today’s conference would come up with concrete recommendations and suggestions that are mainly aimed at encouraging and spurring the media freedom.
On his part, Chairman of the Federation of Arab Journalists Moayed Allami hailed the State of Kuwait as “pioneering” in the promotion of public freedoms in general and freedom of the press in particular.
Media
Allami, who is also the Iraqi press association’s chairman, believed that the press plays an influential role in Kuwait, which is very developed in the media domain.
He recalled that Kuwait was the first Arabian Gulf country to have a chairwoman of the Kuwait Journalists Association.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Kuwaiti authorities to look into the working conditions of employees to determine why some of them attempt to escape, commit suicide and are reported ‘absconding’, reports Al-Rai daily.
The HRW said no one should have to resort to climbing out of tall buildings to escape from their workplace.
Last week, a horrifying video of an Ethiopian domestic worker went viral. The video showed the maid reportedly falling from the seventh floor (according to what media reports said) of an apartment building.
The video appears to have been filmed by the maid’s employer from inside the flat showing the woman dangling outside the window. The employer tells the woman to come back inside. The panicked woman calls out for her to grab her, but within 12 seconds from the start of the recording, the dangling woman loses her grip and falls.
The Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah reported that the domestic worker is being treated at a hospital for a broken hand, and bleeding from nose and ear.
The Al-Seyassah daily also reported the authorities have arrested her employer and charged her for failing to assist her worker.
The employer contends she tried to help. Another local daily reported on Saturday that members of the Ethiopian embassy visited the worker at the hospital.
In 2009, the Human Rights Watch spoke to eight women who reportedly ‘attempted suicide’, who said they fell down while attempting to escape or had been pushed to their ‘death’ by their employers.
No one has suggested that the employer in this incident was responsible for such abuse.