Citizen Journalists ‘freezes’ against violence

A bus full of citizen journalist from the Citizen Jornalists Malaysia (CJMY) movement, collectively held a “freeze flash mob” at Gurney Plaza , yesterday in Gurney Drive, Georgetown, Penang .

The freeze flash mob that was performed at 3 different locations within Gurney Plaza, for about 30 seconds each, was performed in order to create greater awareness about violence against journalist.

The group of citizen journalist were equipped with placards and banners in various languages including in English, Tamil , Chinese and even in Jawi, which requested that the authorities to put an end to violence against journalists.

Shoppers at Gurney Plaza stopped in their tracks to see what was going on and gave the group loud cheers as well as thunderous applause after each “performance”.

“Although we do not consider ourselves to be professional journalist, we did not appreciate the way journalists were treated when they were covering recent rallies across the country and this is just our way of saying  STOP IT ! ” , said one of the citizen journalist from Johor who participated in the freeze flash mob.

Citizen Journalist Malaysia (CJMY) was a project started with the assistance of Malaysiakini and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) approximately four years ago,  and consists of everyday citizens from all walks of life, trained and equipped to report on news from within their communities.