Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter ‘The proposed IRO TV station will provide a service for all religions’ SN, February 21. Mr McGarrell’s statements can be countered on several clear grounds. As reported before, this began in 2007 or even before that when one considers an ERC/IRO religious round-table on ‘How To Propagate Faith without Offence’ in 2005.
In an article on the Inter Religious Television Group on March 10, 2007, SN reported: “The Inter Religious Television Channel recently elected persons to serve on its executive at a meeting hosted at the Bahai National Centre. The group, in a press release, said in keeping with President Bharrat Jagdeo’s direction that all religious bodies should participate in the project, invitations and a press release were last month sent out encouraging attendance. Fifteen organisations participated. The results of the elections are as follows: Bishop Juan Edghill was elected chairman; Swami Aksharananda, vice-chairman; Jennifer Dewar, secretary; Roshan Khan, treasurer; Manzoor Baksh, assistant treasurer; and Ronald McGarrell, monitor.”
President Bharrat Jagdeo’s “direction’? In whose ‘project’? And if there was a ‘compromise,’ why was there no mass consultation in the Christian community? As far as I know, Christians like to be consulted on these issues.
Why was there no presidential “direction” on the removal of TBN from the airwaves?
At the ERC/IRO meeting at the Pegasus Hotel of June 2005 ‘Truth’ was eventually adopted as one of the ‘objective criteria’ that citizens should use on ‘How To Propagate Faith Without Offence.’ Truth now demands that we ask the ERC/IRO to release its minutes of that meeting (an unofficial copy was circulated to the Christian community on June 8, 2005) to advise Guyanese as to what was said in the discussions about censorship and the curtailment of Christian broadcasting and evangelism.
Christians should say with a loud voice that they want no part of this IRO TV station, and advocate instead for the return of TBN and independent stations and programming for all religions.
Now independent stations and programming for all religions would be a most wonderful expression of the commitment to freedom of expression and association, both of which, incidentally, were objective criteria agreed to in 2005 at the ERC/IRO meeting.
Yours faithfully,
Roger Williams
