The Office of the President has accused Stabroek News and Kaieteur News of publishing items which promote racial insecurity and it has called on the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) to investigate.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon dispatched a letter to the ERC asking the commission to look into recent articles and letters which appeared in both newspapers saying that the items are contrary to the laws of Guyana and “warrants the attention of the ERC”. The release yesterday from the Government Information Agency did not identify the articles in question.
Luncheon has called on the commission to “discharge its mandate to investigate and pronounce on these forms of unacceptable journalism”, the statement said yesterday. The office also informed that copies of the letters and articles have also been forwarded to the commission.
OP has said that the authors have been promoting racial insecurity, advocating race-based politics and making vile allegations of racist behaviour against members of the government. It pointed to the Racial Hostility (Amend-ment) Act 2002 which states that a person shall be guilty of an offence if he willfully excites or attempts to excite hostility or ill will against any section of the public, or against any person on the grounds of their or his race by means of, among other things, “written (including printed) matter or pictorial matter published by him. Persons found guilty under the act can be fined $500,000 and jailed for seven years.
The OP statement also pointed to the section of the act which states that the proprietor, printer, publisher or editor of any newspaper, or the printer of any printed document, in which any particular matter has been published, shall be presumed himself to have so published that matter unless he proves that such publication was made without his authority, consent or knowledge and did not arise from want of due care on his part.
Stabroek News Editor-in-Chief Anand Persaud said he was confident that nothing carried by the newspaper would fall afoul of the Racial Hostility (Amendment) Act 2002 and that the newspaper would be very interested in the complaint lodged by OP. Persaud added that the OP move could also be an attempt to censor coverage of important political issues. He said SN would be watching carefully how the ERC proceeds with this matter.
