Latest update March 20th, 2025 5:10 AM
Jul 02, 2010 News
– asks ERC to investigate
According to the Government Information Agency (GINA), the Office of the President has written Bishop Juan Edghill, Chairman of the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), asking the commission to look into recent letters and articles in some newspapers which could be in breach of the country’s anti-racism laws.
In a letter to Edghill, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, said that within recent days, certain newspapers have published letters and articles that the Office of the President insists are contrary to the laws of Guyana and warrant the attention of the (ERC).
Dr Luncheon referred specifically to articles in the Stabroek News and the Kaieteur News in which OP is contending “the authors have been promoting racial insecurity, advocating race-based politics and making vile allegations of racist behaviour against members of the government.”
He has sent copies of the letters and articles to the ERC and called on the commission to “discharge its mandate to investigate and pronounce on these forms of unacceptable journalism.”
According to the GINA, the Racial Hostility (Amendment) Act 2002 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.”
Any person found guilty under the act can be fined $500,000 and jailed for seven years, the statement said.
“The act also states that the proprietor, printer, publisher or editor of any newspaper, or the printer of any other 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.”
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