New union of Libyan journalists and media professionals

#Libyan_Cloud_News_Agency – Tripoli.

A number of Libyan journalists held their fourth meeting on Saturday evening in Tripoli since they started the campaign “Journalists are not terrorists”. With this campaign the journalists demonstrate against the violence used against them doing their job.

In the fourth meeting, they decided to create a union to speak up with one voice. The meeting was attended by 28 journalists. They named the union “Union of Libyan Journalists”.

The journalists elected five members to represent the union to discuss with the Government of National Accord about their issues. One of the elected members is the editor in chief of #Libyan_Cloud_News_Agency Tariq Alhouny. He said they created the union as the situation required an entity due to these difficult times to ensure their rights of the journalists and freedom of opinion. He said that the union was created after many attempts to do so failed. This failure also was one reason for Libya to be placed on rank 162 out 180 in the international report about freedom of speech. Without such a union it was easy to attack the journalists, Alhouny added. The missing fourth power (media) was one of the reasons for Libya to have very high corruption rate, Alhouny mentioned.

According to Alhouny, the aim of the union would be to protect the right of freedom of speech, to protect the journalists in their daily work, and therefore to add to the reduction of high corruption.

Alhouny stated that the union is a Libyan union – all media people from all over Libya would be welcome.