Throughout Sunday’s Metn by-election, members of the media, particularly those working for candidate Gabriel Murr’s Murr Television (MTV), were denied access to proceedings.
According to sources at MTV, many of the 50 cameramen licensed to enter polling stations were barred.
“Security men threatened to take away my camera if I got close to the station,” said Bernard Sadeq, an MTV cameraman. Sadeq said that he was instructed to stay some 200 meters away from the station at the Phoenicia Secondary School in Antelias.
“As soon as he saw my MTV badge, the officer said he had just received instructions that members of the media were not to enter, but cameramen from other TV stations were going in and out freely,” he said.
MTV reporters were also barred from a press conference given by Interior Minister Elias Murr in the morning.
When asked about the absence of reporters from the station, Murr told journalists: “You have to ask them.” Murr suggested MTV reporters had willingly boycotted his conference, adding that “this is an example of freedom without true democracy.”
MTV reporters said they were denied access to the ministry. MTV reporter Tania Ghorra told The Daily Star that guards at the ministry confronted her when they saw her MTV badge, despite the fact that she had clearance.
“The guard … confessed to me indirectly that MTV reporters would not be permitted to enter,” she said. The station, however did broadcast the conference, transmitted through a New Television camera.
The Daily Star and other reporters were denied access to Myrna Murr’s campaign headquarters in Amarat Shalhoub, with no information provided as to her whereabouts.
In a number of polling stations, security personnel informed members of the media that they had “five minutes” to perform their duties, a stipulation that has not applied in previous rounds of postwar parliamentary elections. While some Internal Security Forces personnel stated that polling station officials could not make public statements, ISF personnel allowed it to happen in a number of polling stations.

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