Call for ACB to be dissolved

May 18, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,

We refer to an article published in the print media dated May 9th 2009, captioned “Broadcasting Committee warns Sharma about ‘Papillion’ and church programme claims”

The publication in the newspaper informs us that one Evan Radhay Persaud has 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 was 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 is this Mr. Persaud? Who appointed him to the advisory committee? When that appointment was made? What qualifications he has which makes him suitable for this position? And why we broadcasters were not apprised of it? In addition we are of the united view that all communications from the ACB be signed by all three members, since the communication we have seen was signed by only one person who we do not know.

Whoever Mr. Persaud is, by signing that letter to C.N. Sharma, he has demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of what the ACB is supposed to do on behalf of the public, contrary to the regulations setting up the ACB which require at 23b (2) that “the members of the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting shall be persons knowledgeable and with recognised 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The PNC had withdrawn their nominee from the ACB and has not offered another candidate in his place, since they are of the opinion that the ACB was a temporary only Committee, not to last more than one year as stated in the MOU signed by H.E. the President of Guyana Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo and the Leader of the opposition Mr. Desmond Hoyte on 7th November 2001. This was reconfirmed in the 6th May 2003 Communiqué between H.E. the President Mr. Jagdeo and leader of the opposition Mr. Robert Corbin i.e. that a completely autonomous Broadcast Authority will be formed within four months of 1st May 2003.

Therefore since none of the three original members agreed to by the Government and the opposition as forming the ACB are currently still at the ACB; since Carlton James the nominee of civil society 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 from the ACB, one wonders if there can still exist an ACB in this country which was originally intended to be a temporary body only as specified in the MOU of 7th November 2001 with three specific names acknowledged by the Government and the opposition, none of who are at the ACB today.

We are, as a consequence of these facts, of the opinion that the ACB is in fact 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 eight 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 [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 after years of non enforcement of content which offends decency at the PPP sympathiser TV stations, which are airing every conceivable kind of offensive language, nudity and indecency and which we have written to the ACB complaining about nearly three 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 them here, whilst the PPP sympathiser channels were airing non edited videos from DVD thereby not competing on a level playing field with the rest of us, have suddenly awoken from their coma to attack Sharma and

Channel 9 thereby showing that the ACB 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 the PPP’s, 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 that Sharma’s programme offends against decency but incredibly he does not see that the videos aired on a certain channel, also clearly offends decency and that other channels loyal to the PPP also air content which patently offend decency almost daily.

Also this person wants Sharma to exercise prior censorship on 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; the evangelists in question should sue the ACB and Mr. Persaud personally for infringing their right to freedom of speech, since if one person in history was ever healed by the power of prayer, then it is possible.

The letter from the ACB signed by this one member E. Persaud to channels 6 and 9 state that the claims 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 the act confer the right to make such a determination on the ACB.

One has to ask oneself what the person or persons were thinking about when he/she/they appointed this inexperienced and un-knowledgeable person to this highly specialised and sensitive position [if legal] which directly impact on the very essence of freedom of speech in this country and are an affront to the elements which are enshrined in the 10 principles of Chapultepec which H. E. President Jagdeo himself signed on to in 2004 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 this 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 eight years be dissolved.

Anthony Vieira. MS MP

Chairman of Broadcasting: Independent Media Association of Guyana: IMAG

 

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