Rwanda National Police and Media Practitioners making a total of 82 in the country met in a one-day interaction conference aimed at strengthening relations yesterday at Police headquarters in Kacyiru.
Opening the conference, Inspector General of Police Emmanuel K. Gasana said that Police is seeking partnership with the media to ensure sustainable development.
“Partnership is needed in reassuring the vision, mission, ensuring safety of our people, property and making sure that we are together in the journey of community policing and policing regime in broad,”
“This partnership is wanting and we should be conscious on the emerging trends and threats. Policing has been changing over time. In the past, we used to have classic but today we are talking about non-conventional and that is where we see you (media) in Police partnering,”
“This partnership is a collective way of addressing security were all actors or practitioners are involved to drive the nation towards a national development agenda,” said Gasana adding that both parties need to share timely, valuable and meaningful information which is vital for the community
The IGP further added that this is a win-win situation which is very important. In today’s world and as far as Police with media is concerned, they are many concepts developing such as media friendly, democratic policing, media centre policing, transparency, trust, openness and so many others.
Once you have the capacity to prevent a crime, then you are done because what comes next to that is law enforcement. So Media being a partner in the campaign to prevent crimes is why we are here today, he said
IGP also encouraged media houses to always aim at providing credible information to the public than engaging in damaging information which affects the image of Police force for the sake of generating revenues through their sales..
The head of the Press House, Jean Bosco Rushingabigwi thanked the Police for their commitment in ensuring safety and security in the nation. He further urged Police to ensure equal access to information to all media houses and have advertisements shared equally.
The executive secretary of Media High Council (MHC), Emmanuel Mugisha thanked the Police for the landmark reached in changing the mindset of journalists.
“We should have a task force in place to study how this partnership can be strengthened so as to help the public in ensuring security to the nation,” said Mugisha adding that media is a partner in Good Governance and community policing.
Among resolutions taken are the set up of a steering committee composed of 3 members from media and 3 members from Police that shall be meeting quarterly to sort out important common issues; the issuing of press card to all journalists by 1st December, the running of Kinyarwanda Police website version by 1st December and the commitment from journalists to earmark permanent space in their media, discouraging drug abuse
Leave a Reply