CATEGORY:SPECIAL REPORT
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The following article, taken from the Jamaican Observer, is reprinted in its entirety.



Balford Henry
Saturday, October 21, 2006

A ban on journalists accessing certain areas of Gordon House since last June was expanded yesterday to including sections of the public galleries and the Hansard area.

The original ban, which denied journalists access to
the lobby area, was introduced in April 2004 after the press reported that then minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, K D Knight, had used expletives to then minister of local government, Portia Simpson Miller.

That altercation was triggered by Simpson Miller's
abstention on a vote on a motion from the Opposition
seeking increased funding for the fire service.

Yesterday, it was expanded to include the public
galleries and the Hansard area, where stenotypists
type and record the day's proceedings. Under the new
rules, journalists, including reporters and cameramen,will now be restricted to a small press room and a small, overcrowded gallery behind the speaker.

The latest ban follows Wednesday's publication of a
photograph in the Observer, showing Prime Minister
Simpson Miller doodling, while Leader of the
Opposition Bruce Golding opened the debate on a
no-confidence motion against the government.

Clerk to Parliament, Heather Cooke, told the Observer on Wednesday that reporters would be banned from entering the Hansard area. Yesterday, the Observer learnt that, in fact, all reporters would be banned from that area, as well as the public galleries overlooking the government and opposition sides of the chamber from which some seats are to be removed and the areas restricted to the police. A door is also to be placed between the Hansard area and the press gallery.

Cooke has insisted that some of the areas should never have been opened to the press in the first place. However, on Wednesday she admitted that the changes were ordered by the Speaker of the House Michael Peart.

Asked whether the photograph was the "straw which
broke the camel's back", Cooke reacted, "it was the
straw which broke the speaker's back".