The Surinamese Association of Journalists (SVJ) has condemned the accusations made by Public Works Minister Riad Nurmohamed against one of its most experienced and senior members who also happens to be  the editor in chief of Starnieuws. Minister Nurmohamed slammed Starnieuws over its column on the fact that the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) has ordered another call of tenders because the first call did not take place in accordance with the proper legal procedures. The document that contains the official order of the IDB was also published by Starnieuws to collaborate the story. “Government officials must come to realize that journalists will always ask the questions that are on the minds of the people and that journalists are also obligated to uncover the facts. It is unacceptable for government officials to feel attacked when journalists start asking the right questions and when they seem this as green light to starry telling journalists and media houses how to do their job. The Public Works minister has even labelled the media workers as devils and demons and has also announced that he would take legal action against them. The minister feels threatened because a media house strongly believes that he is mainly responsible for everything that goes on at his ministry and that he should hand in his letter of resignation because of this huge mistake,” said the SVJ. The SVJ made it clear that Minister Nurmohamed must keep in mind that freedom of speech has suffered serious attacks under the current administration that he is also a part of. After the attack on a journalist from De Ware Tijd in 2022 Suriname dropped from the 19th to the 52nd place on the World Press Freedom Index.

 Thanks to the efforts of journalists Suriname has climbed to the 28th place. The SVJ made it clear that this drop on the international list does not keep government officials from launching verbal attacks on journalists and threatening them with legal action…[+]