Media

Haitian Journalist Detained for Trying to Photograph Oprah

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) — Haitian police detained a Haitian journalist for trying to take photos of Oprah Winfrey as she visited a tent camp of internally displaced persons in Haiti.

The arrest was witnessed by an Associated Press journalist on Monday who saw a guard drag the Haitian photographer into a small police station at the camp.

Police refused to let the photographer leave unless he erased his camera memory card.

The photographer declined to delete the photo, and police continued to hold him until a more senior official, Police Inspector Jean-Lionel Aurelien, arrived and ordered him released, saying, "Journalists have the right to work without intimidation."

"No one knew who he was, or what he had been doing or who he was with," said Chance Patterson, a senior vice president for Harpo Studios, the producer of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," who is accompanying Winfrey on her trip this week.

"He just came running in apparently and started taking photos and he was stopped and then the supervisor came and said, 'Let him go,'" Patterson told the AP. "That was it."

Police and private security guards are out in force as Winfrey meets with Sean Penn at the camp where his nonprofit organization provides assistance to quake victims.

Winfrey came to Haiti on Sunday under tight security. Guards and police cleared the airport so journalists could not film her arrival. Her representatives have not provided any details about her itinerary, though President Michel Martelly said he intended to meet with her.

Journalists in Haiti have been working in a hostile environment under the administration of President Michel Martelly.

Several events have prompted the nation's press freedom organizations, including international press freedom organization, Reporters Without Borders, to call on the president to clarify his stance on press freedom. To this date he has not.

Actor Sean Penn doesn't have a clear record with journalists either. In 2009 the actor assaulted a paparazzo and had to settle the case for an undisclosed amount of money.