The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Petition to Press Council of India

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Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Petition to Press Council of India

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The National Network of Positive People (NNP+), has approached the Press Council of India with a request that it should issue a protocol and a set of guidelines for the media on the rights of people living with HIV.

The organisation made this request to the council following a directive by the Juvenile Court in the district, where NNP+ has submitted a complaint regarding the manner in which the print and visual media had handled reports on two HIV-positive children from Kollam, Bency and Benson. The NNP+, in its letter to the council, said the media had shown pictures of Bency in a highly deteriorated condition of health and had even misreported that the child had died. The impact of such pictures and news items on the psychological state of HIV-infected people, especially children, was quite negative, the NNP+ pointed out.

In its petition before the Juvenile Court here, the NNP+ had represented that the publication of the photographs of Bency. The Juvenile court, while pointing out that the concerns expressed by the petitioners were “genuine and reasonable,” said the petition does not come within the court’s purview.

The judge observed that media were expected to have self-imposed restrictions

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