Dear Editor,

We refer to an article published in your newspaper dated May 9, 2009 captioned ‘Broadcasting committee warns Sharma about “Papillion” and church programme claims’

The publication informs us that Mr Evan Radhay Persaud signed the letter of sanction as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB). First of all we the private broadcasters in this country were not advised either in writing or by any press release from the Office of the President, which is currently the authority discharging broadcast functions, that anyone called Evan Radhay Persaud had been made chairman of the ACB; as such, therefore, to the best of our knowledge Mr Pat Dial is still the PPP nominee and chairman of the ACB (if it still legally exists).

We would therefore like to know who Mr Persaud is. Who appointed him to the committee? When was that appointment made? What qualifications does he have which make him suitable for this position? And why were we broadcasters not apprised of his appointment? In addition we are of the united view that all communications from the ACB should be signed by all three members, since the communication we have seen was signed by only one person whom we do not know.

Whoever Mr Persaud is, by signing that letter to CN Sharma, he has demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of what the ACB is supposed to do on behalf of the public. The regulations setting up the ACB require at 23b (2) that “the members of the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting shall be persons knowledgeable and with recognized competence in matters related to broadcasting.”

We also have a similar letter written to Channel 9 about the religious programme ‘Stop Suffering.’

The PNC had withdrawn their nominee from the ACB and have not offered another candidate in his place, since they are of the opinion that the ACB was only a temporary committee which was not to last more than one year, as stated in the MOU signed by the President of Guyana Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Desmond Hoyte on November 7, 2001; this was reconfirmed in the May 6, 2003 communiqué between the President, Mr Jagdeo and Leader of the Opposition, Mr Robert Corbin – ie a completely autonomous Broadcast Authority was to be formed within four months of May 1, 2003.

Since in addition to this none of the three original members agreed to by the government and the opposition as forming the ACB is currently still at the ACB – Carlton James the civil society nominee has resigned to take up a less controversial position elsewhere, the PNC’s nominee has been withdrawn and now it appears that Mr Pat Dial has also resigned – one wonders if an ACB can still exist in this country.

We are, as a consequence of these facts, of the opinion that the ACB is illegal since after being formed as a temporary body for a period of not more than one year it has managed to exist for nearly 8 years and is in fact now functioning as a Broadcast Authority. We have competent legal opinion that the ACB as a legal entity could not stand up in any court.

We would also like clarification as to why this Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (even if legal) continues to write directly to broadcasters and is not advising the responsible Minister, as the law demands, who will in turn then write the offending broadcaster outlining the alleged infringement/s. Also it is our opinion that the letter of sanction from the subject Minister should (to be legal) be accompanied by the letter from the ACB identifying the infringement with the signatures of all three members of the ACB.

Secondly, for years there has been a non-enforcement of sanctions against content which offends decency on the PPP sympathiser Channels – 65, 69,102 & NCN TV and now HJ 21/72 – which air every conceivable kind of offensive language, nudity and indecency and which we wrote to the ACB complaining about nearly 3 years ago, because we (Channels 7, 28, 13, etc) had voluntarily opted to broadcast only programming which was edited for broadcast in the US before we aired it here. These channels in contrast were airing non-edited videos from DVDs, thereby not competing on a level playing field with the rest of us. Now suddenly the ACB has awoken from its coma to attack Sharma and Channel 9 thereby showing that it is now completely politicised.

This proves the point we have been making since 1996 with the introduction of the PPP’s first Broadcast Bill, which is that we cannot allow these highly political and biased committees/regulators to be posing as legal entities removing our right to free speech once our views do not coincide with those of the PPP, whilst there is a         completely separate set of rules and criteria for those channels which support them.

The person alleging to represent the ACB as its chairman deems Sharma’s programme as offending against decency, but incredibly he does not see that the videos aired on channel HJ 21/72 also clearly offend decency and that other channels loyal to the PPP also air content which patently offends decency almost daily.

Also this person wants Sharma to exercise prior censorship in relation to a pastor who claims that he can heal by prayer.  Did anyone in this country ever hear of Benny Hinn or the other US evangelists who claim that they have the power to heal by prayer? The Federal Communications Commission of the US has never sanctioned them; since neither Mr Sharma nor the rest of us are medical people, we are not in a position to determine if these claims are spurious or not. Neither is E. Persaud.

The Medical Council should make a determination and they should publish it in the media and get the Minister of Health to make an announcement that these acts of faith should not be used as a substitute for proper medical attention, but no one can say definitively that these people are charlatans and liars; if one person in history was ever healed by the power of prayer, then it is possible.

The letter from the ACB signed by Mr E. Persaud to Channels 6 and 9 state that the claim of miracle cures is “highly erroneous and destructive to the population of Guyana since some individuals will eschew from proper medical treatment hoping for a religious miracle cure.” This is absolutely ludicrous and outside of his authority as nowhere in the regulations setting up the ACB does it confer on the ACB the right to make such a determination.

This directly impacts the very essence of freedom of speech in this country and is an affront to the elements enshrined in the 10 principles of Chapúltepec which President Jagdeo himself signed on to on behalf of the people of Guyana.

We object to this situation and demand that immediate arrangements be made to appoint a completely autonomous Broadcast Authority comprised of people who will be selected in a totally impartial manner to function as a regulatory body to remove political interference, victimisation and infringement of our fundamental rights currently extant in our broadcasting industry.

We are also asking that with immediate effect the highly politicised ACB which was only supposed to be a temporary body, but which we have had to endure for 8 years be dissolved.

Yours faithfully,
Anthony Vieira. MS MP
Chairman of Broadcasting
Independent Media Association of
Guyana