MAJ denounces fatal gun attack on US journalists
Published:Friday | June 29, 2018 | 1:48 PM
Media Association Jamaica (MAJ) is denouncing yesterday's attack on the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, US, in which five employees were killed.
The MAJ says attacks on the freedom of the press must be universally condemned.
It says journalists and other media workers need to feel that they can operate in a safe environment where they are able to carry out their work in informing their readers, viewers, and listeners without fear of reprisals.
The attacker, 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos, forced his way through the newsroom with a pump-action shotgun and opened fire.
The local police say Ramos had a long-held grudge against the newspaper included a string of angry online messages and a failed defamation lawsuit over a column about him pleading guilty to harassing a woman.
They say the police had investigated online threats he made in 2013, but the newspaper declined to press charges for fear of inflaming the situation.
Ramos, who is charged with five counts of murder, in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in US history, was denied bail Friday.
The MAJ says its thoughts and prayers go out to the colleagues and families of the deceased.
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