Dear Editor,
The President of the Press Association, Ms. Nazima Raghubir, not satisfied with personally attacking me on the matter of how the recent Presidential Press Conference was conducted and having publicly grossly misrepresented the arrangements for the Press Conference, has now enlisted a scurrilous personal attack on me in the name of the Press Association, published in yesterday’s (18th July, 2023) Kaieteur News, but, with no signature to the letter other than Press Association.
I ask the following question: in spite of publishing three letters on behalf of Ms. Raghubir, the Kaieteur News has published none of mine, is this the freedom of the press that Raghubir and the Association seek to defend? The Association have happily used the Kaieteur News as a propaganda arm against the government and, me, personally.
When Guyana was threatened with the installation of a military dictatorship by means of a naked attempt to rig the tabulation of Region 4 results, I ask, where was the voice of the Press Association or the voice of any one of the members of the directors of the Association in defence of much more than press freedom, but the country’s freedom?
In their personal attack on me, the Association has sought to connect me directly to “widespread gagging of the media…the non-issuance of radio broadcasting licences…banned importation of a new printing press” and newsprint, in an era long past and of which I had absolutely nothing to do with directly and, ironically, on behalf of a political party of which a number of the members of the Press Association are known to be politically associated.
My final question, I must ask: is the Press Association being politically weaponized against the government of the day under the guise of defending freedom of the press?
Yours sincerely,
Kit Nascimento
