Selling of obscene material, criminal defamation…Int’l press body urges removal of archaic laws

Aug 06, 2013 News

---

 

The International Press Association (IPI) has recommended that Guyana adjust its criminal laws to remove all references of libel and defamation. In a report released last week, IPI also called on the Government to reform the laws to remove references of seditious libel. Currently, under the Criminal Law (Offences) Act, media workers and others can face three years in jail and fines for defamatory libel.

IPI has been making the rounds to have countries adjust their laws. One of the issues that the body has problems with also is current obscene libel laws, where someone caught selling or publishing obscene matter, could face up to two years in prison.
Based in Vienna, IPI is a global organisation with members in more than 120 countries. In April, several of its members conducted a three-day visit to Guyana to push for the laws to decriminalise defamation.
IPI is contending that the threat of jail could affect the freedom of media workers.
During the visit, IPI, together with its strategic partner, the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM), also visited Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Curaçao.
“In nearly all cases, these laws have been left over from colonial powers, for which they served as a convenient tool for preserving authority and stamping out criticism,” the IPI said in its report.
Currently, all 16 independent states in the Caribbean maintain some form of the defamation laws.
The media body stressed that the prosecutions which have seen some journalists sentenced to prison, risk instilling self-censorship in the media and thereby depriving readers, viewers and listeners of information in the public interest

All is not well
Among the team that met with the Opposition and Government in Guyana on the issues were Alison Bethel-McKenzie, IPI Executive Director; Bert Wilkinson, Executive member of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers in Guyana; John Yearwood, IPI Vice-Chair and Chairman of IPI’s North American Committee and World Editor of The Miami Herald, and Scott Griffen, IPI press freedom advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean.

IPI did not find any recent prosecutions of journalists under Guyana’s criminal defamation laws. However, there have been a number of civil suits filed by government officials against journalists. The Guyana Constitution (1980) does not contain explicit protection for the press. However, it does say: “Except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of expression, that is to say, freedom to hold opinions without interference, freedom to receive ideas and information without interference, freedom to communicate ideas and information without interference and freedom from interference with his correspondence.”
In a meeting with IPI delegates, Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall agreed that journalists “should not go to jail for practising their craft,” and pledged to prepare a memo on the issue for the country’s cabinet. Nandlall stated: “I cannot see the utility of having something in the law that is not used,” adding that no Guyanese journalist had been charged with criminal libel in recent times.

Jail them
The report noted that the AG urged IPI to emphasise the importance of media ethics.
“The media is one of the most powerful organisations in the world,” he noted, “and with that power comes a commensurate responsibility.” Nandlall stressed in particular that in Guyana, which he described as a “society with underlying tensions,” journalists must be aware of their context.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds was more explicit in his criticism of the media, asserting that the Guyanese independent press engages in “premeditated distortion” that “maximises the social problems in our society.”
Hinds presented the IPI delegation with photocopies of an article from a leading newspaper whose headline he claimed contained a false statement about him and did not match exactly the article’s content. He implied that the original headline may have been changed in the editorial process to suit a particular political bias.
IPI also met with Gail Teixeira, advisor on governance to President Donald Ramotar.

Teixeira informed IPI that while she could not make any specific promises, the government was “not opposed to changing it [criminal libel law].” Like other political figures, she welcomed IPI’s commitment to providing journalist training in Guyana, stating, “We don’t want everyone to love the government, we just want fair and accurate reporting.”
The Opposition was notably more supportive of repealing criminal libel.
“Count my entire party in,” Khemraj Ramjattan, leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC), told the delegation. “You have my instant support.”
Although broadly sympathetic to IPI’s view, Brigadier (retired) David Granger, leader of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), expressed skepticism that media self-regulation would be sufficient to protect reputations.
“When you are surrounded by large numbers of untrained reporters, there does exist the danger of defamation, which requires more than an apology afterward.”

 

 

---

---