FOTP 2013 Full Report

planned to restart a weekly English-language newspaper, which would bring the number ofnewspapers in the kingdom to five, along with Taimi, Talaki, Kele‘a, and Ita. The independentmonthly magazine and news website Matangi Tonga is an important media provider andindependent book publisher. The state-owned Tonga Broadcasting Commission owns one AMand two FM radio stations as well as the free-to-air station Television Tonga. There are threeindependent FM radio stations. The government does not restrict access to the internet, whichwas used by about 35 percent of the population during 2012.Trinidad and TobagoStatus: FreeLegal Environment: 6Political Environment: 12Economic Environment: 8Total Score: 26Survey Edition 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012Total Score, Status 23,F 23,F 23,F 24,F 25,FFreedom of the press is enshrined in the constitution and is generally respected in practice.However, there were a number of cases in 2012 in which government officials intimidatedcritical journalists and media outlets.Defamation and libel remain criminal offenses. In May 2012, Jack Warner, the nationalsecurity minister and former vice president of the Fédération Internationale de FootballAssociation (FIFA), soccer’s world governing body, sued Trinidadian journalist Lasana Liburdfor libel after he wrote online articles linking Warner to missing emergency aid that FIFA haddonated for earthquake relief in Haiti. Warner was seeking damages and an injunction to forbidLiburd from publishing further defamatory statements against him. In June, Prime MinisterKamla Persad-Bissessar announced the government’s intention to decriminalize defamation, butno such reform was enacted by year’s end. In April, Ian Alleyne, director of the TV6 programCrime Watch, was charged under the Sexual Offences Act for an October 2011 episode thatshowed a recording of the sexual assault of a teenage girl with the intention of identifying theperpetrator. Alleyne, who could face up to five years in prison, was awaiting trial at year’s end.Executives at the Caribbean Communications Network (CCN), the parent company of TV6, werealso charged.While freedom of information legislation is in place, the government has been criticizedfor gradually narrowing the categories of public information that are available under the law.Warner announced in October 2012 that the media would be denied access to the government’scrime statistics so that news outlets and the opposition could not sensationalize the data, which,he argued, could lead to more crime. In December, the Trinidad and Tobago Publishers andBroadcasters Association announced that it had reached an agreement with the attorney generalto amend the 2011 Data Protection Act, a privacy law that partially came into force in 2012, tocreate an exemption for investigative journalism.While there were no reports of physical attacks on the press in 2012, there were a numberof cases in which the government intimidated journalists and interfered in the work of media375