The Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is still to receive a response from the Guyana government on its reasons for the withdrawal of state advertising from the Stabroek News more than four months after first making a written request.
Contacted for an update by telephone on the issue on Friday, Special Rapporteur Ignacio Alvarez told the Stabroek News from Washington DC that he has received a reply from the government in August stating that they would be sending a comprehensive response but as of Friday he had received no further communication.
Based on a Stabroek News request of the Special Rapporteur to intervene in helping to resolve the matter of the government’s withdrawal of state ads from the Stabroek News, Alvarez had written the government on June 13, 2007. The letter was reportedly received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 23 and placed on the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rudy Insanally’s desk for action on July 25, 2007.
It is still not known how the letter was delayed.
On September 13, 2007, when asked about the government’s response to the IACHR at his press briefing, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon said that it was still in the making, and was being undertaken collaboratively by the Office of the President, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had added that the final input would rest with the Office of the President.
The government has said that it had withdrawn state advertising from the Stabroek News because, as reiterated by President Bharrat Jagdeo to the state-run Guyana Information Agency (GINA) on October 18, 2007, of circulation; the President said that Stabroek News needs to get its circulation rate up again and that it does not constitute an issue of press freedom.
Jagdeo’s recent remarks followed a Stabroek News protest outside the Guyana International Conference Centre at the start of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting which sought to draw international attention to government’s withdrawal of ads from this newspaper which started a year ago.
Asked for a comment, Stabroek News Editor-in-chief David de Caires said: “Everybody knows what the government is saying namely that they are giving all the ads to the state newspaper and the private newspaper with the highest circulation. However, what they have consistently ignored and refused to respond to, is that the circulations of the three daily newspapers have not been audited.”
De Caires said it had been urged from the outset that there should be an audit by a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation and that advice on the target audience for government advertisements should be sought from a professional advertising agency.
“What the government has adamantly refused to recognise and respond to is that the very system they have announced is unfair and unacceptable. It constitutes an abuse of press freedom,” he contended.
“The system for the allocation of state ads, paid for with taxpayers money must be fair and transparent, which the present system is not,” he said, adding that, “Simply to keep reiterating their positions and to ignore the representations of the regional media is obviously in bad faith. The regional media team led by Harold Hoyte offered to assist in crafting a fair system and this was rejected by the President.”
He noted that “the government action has been condemned throughout the region and by several international press associations. They have all stressed that state ads must be allocated according to a transparent system, which the one announced is not. Completely cutting out one newspaper cannot be a fair system. Some element of proportionality based on circulation and reader appeal for the type of ads placed is essential.
Options
“It should be noted that the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) after itself criticising the decision, had written the Commonwealth Secretary General asking him to look into the matter. Following that request, political advisor for Caribbean affairs in the Commonwealth Secretariat, Juliet Solomon had interviewed de Caires, the Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon, and other persons several months ago and was expected to make a report on the matter.”
Asked what the IACHR can do if the government fails to respond, or, if the Stabroek News was not satisfied with the response and there was no solution to the matter at the level of the Office of the Special Rapporteur, Alvarez said that there are a number of possible options that the Stabroek News could adopt.
These options, he said, include the newspapers or any other media affected similarly, requesting a hearing on the merits of the case to the IACHR which would then be heard at the OAS headquarters in Washington DC with all the parties concerned.
In addition, he said that anyone can present an international complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the state has violated the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights.
However, he noted that Guyana, is one of a few Caribbean countries that has not signed or ratified the Convention on Human Rights. Nevertheless Guyana is a party to the Inter-American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Men and the
United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights which is the basis for the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression on which the Office of the Special Rapporteur of the IACHR operates.
On the basis of Guyana’s commitment to the Inter-American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Men, the IACHR “may have” jurisdiction to hear a complaint from the Stabroek News or anyone representing the Stabroek News.
To date, he said that the IACHR has not received a formal complaint from the Stabroek News and he is not aware of the commission ever receiving a complaint and hearing one in relation to freedom of the press issues.
Another option open to the Office of the Special Rapporteur in dealing with the matter, he said was highlighting the matter though the annual report on the situation of freedom of expression in the region if unresolved.
Last but not least, he noted that the Office of the Special Rapporteur would this year be observing its tenth anniversary and is currently preparing a special report on freedom of expression in the region. In that report, Alvarez said that the situation of freedom of expression would be analysed in every member country of the OAS. This matter, if unresolved could also form part of Guyana’s country analysis.
Verdict
He noted that in the past the Office of the Rapporteur has tried to resolve issues before going further. He noted the recent case in Argentina in which his office had recommended to the government – as it has urged the Guyana government – to review the withdrawal of the advertisements and adopt legislation and administrative policies that require objective and transparent criteria for determining the allocation of official advertising.
Last month Stabroek News reported this case in which Argentina’s Attorney General, Esteban Righi, in his Supreme Court verdict in Buenos Aires last month on the arbitrary placement of ads by a provincial government, cited recommendations from the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and called for the creation of mechanisms to establish guidelines for the allocation of advertising.
“The lack of rules allows the government to act with ‘excessive discretion’ in the placement of advertising,” he said adding that, “the biased distribution of public advertising had emerged as a new category of censorship of freedom of speech.”
The Special Rapporteur’s advice to the government recalled that Principle 13 of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression indicates that the arbitrary and discriminatory placement of official advertising with the intent to punish or reward communications media because of the opinions they express thr
eatens freedom of expression and must be expressly prohibited by law.
The Office of the Special Rapporteur emphasised that the authority that States have to make decisions “regarding the awarding of advertising should be exercised on the basis of objective and transparent criteria. Measures that deprive a media outlet from receiving official advertising for being critical of the public administration constitute an indirect restriction on freedom of expression.”
The Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression emphasised that “official advertising constitutes an important source of income for some communications media in the region. Its arbitrary and discriminatory use can affect the diffusion of information of public interest, and the democratic control that a properly informed society exercises over the government.”
It should be noted that the Special Rapporteur’s request from the government for information on the withdrawal of the ads was first made public by the Stabroek News on June 16, 2006. The request was made based on a formal complaint the Stabroek News had made in relation to the pulling of the ads from this newspaper in retaliation over its editorial stance on various issues.