The Interior Ministry says security officers are acting against the interests of victims by controlling media access at traffic accident scenes.

“Security men have to behave responsibly when dealing with media coverage of accidents. The interests of the relatives of the victims have to be taken into consideration. We have often been stung by the conduct of media personalities and we shall not encourage security men to neglect their responsibilities,” the ministry’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, told a forum on media security at King Saud University on Monday.

“We have thus far failed to notice commendable handling of the information we supply to media persons,” Al-Turki said.

He said that police were ready to supply information but that officers have been wary about their level of contact with the media because they did not want the country’s security establishment to be accused of behaving like a “police state.”

Al-Turki also slammed the manner in which the media covered recent security efforts to stop the illegal entry of persons across the country’s southern borders.

“The media has apparently exaggerated the mistreatment of infiltrators. I did not see any media reporters handling such issues professionally by at least visiting such spots,” he said.

Columnist Idris Al-Dorais says there is a need for security agencies to respond quickly to reports published by new media outlets, Al-Hayat daily reported.

Al-Dorais said that the Kingdom’s security agencies had an important role to play in strengthening the role of youth. He called on people with legal knowledge to speak about the positive and negative aspects of various issues.

“Ministers should be informed about feedback from the street. Positive messages should also be sent to governors and senior officials so that they are encouraged to deal with the issues that create anger and fury in new media outlets.”

“Perhaps there is a group circulating provocative rumors on the Internet. The best defense against this is to provide replies that reveal the truth of such rumors and set up an administration for electronic monitoring,” he said.

He appealed to the Ministry of Interior to loosen up its centralized system of supplying information to the media on security matters.

Another participant at the forum, Head of the Radio and Television Commission Abdul Rahman Al-Huza, said Saudi media houses had reservations in the past about publishing reports about a minister or prince.

He said that 80 percent of the information that reached foreign reporters known to be provocative was sourced from domestic media. Most of the cases that were referred to the violations committee at the Culture and Information Ministry while he was head of the committee were either for publishing a report without ascertaining the facts or for fabricating news. New regulations stipulate that any report must be verified before publishing, he said.