WPA
Press Release
Working People's Alliance
Rodney House
80 Croal Street
Georgetown, Guyana
Tel/Fax: 592-2-53679
WPA PRESS STATEMENT
April 12th. 2008
There is a real and present danger of yet another assault on press freedom and freedom of expression being launched by the PPPC government. This time the victims are once again Chanda Naraine Sharma, his television station CNS Channel 6 and the numerous persons who have demonstrated tremendous confidence over the years in Sharma and Channel 6 as the vehicles through which their frustrations are aired.
According to reports, Mr. Sharma has been summoned to a meeting at the Office of the President on Thursday, April 10, 2003, with Dr. Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, "to show cause why his licence should not be cancelled or suspended for alleged infringements on the programme "Voice of the People".
It is to be noted that the body lawfully constituted and charged with overseeing the conduct of the television media, the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB), accepted Mr.Sharma's explanations and apology for the airing and inadvertent re-airing of the offending broadcast in question. The matter, as far as the ACB was concerned, ended there. Not so. Not content with recently over-ruling the Speaker of the National Assembly, the omnipotent Office of the President, through the plenipotentiary Dr. Luncheon, has stepped in to over-rule the ACB and now seeks to bring Mr. Sharma to book.
WPA believes that the absence in Guyana of media that guarantee the poor and the powerless opportunities to express their concerns on important national issues is a serious indictment of the much vaunted "democratic process" which we hear so much about. As such, people look to Sharma and his -"Voice of the People" - as the primary source available to them to expose their views to the wider public. People across the wide political spectrum, and across race and gender have taken advantage of the opportunities which Sharma and Channel 6 have provided and they have publicly exposed grave shortcomings in the PPPC's stewardship of the country.
More recently, Sharma has made air time available to the parliamentary political parties These developments have not gone unnoticed and unchallenged by the PPPC and its supporters and in the process Sharma has been the subject of numerous abuses, threats and actual physical assaults. While it may be true that there have been times when persons have been excessive and even outlandish in their criticisms it cannot be denied that Sharma has cautioned callers against the use of defamatory language.
WPA believes that any attempt by the government to curtail the operations of CNS TV6 must be seen for what it is - another blatant attempt by the government to trample on the fundamental rights of Guyanese. We call on all Guyanese to close ranks behind Sharma to resist this latest violation. Yesterday it was Buxtonians, torture and Stabroek News, today it is Shama's CNS TV 6. Whose turn will it be tomorrow?
WPA PRESS STATEMENT
March 31st. 2008
The WPA shares the astonishment of Mrs. Patricia Rodney and her children at the pronouncement by Prime Minister Hinds in the National Assembly that there was some hesitation on the part of the Rodney family about whether they wanted the inquiry to go forward. At no time have the family, friends and comrades of Dr. Rodney wavered in their demand for the impartial international inquiry called for in the parliamentary Motion. If, as the Prime Minister claims, he was advised by the Office of the President through Dr. Roger Luncheon, that some consultations between Dr. Roopnaraine and the family, according to one media report, "sparked the contention of hesitation", then he was poorly advised, if not misled.
The Prime Minister should have been advised that feelers were put out by the Office of the President in an attempt to mount the Inquiry in the run-up to the 2006 elections. At that time, the WPA and the Rodney family expressed their distaste for the Inquiry being turned into an election campaign issue, with all the ugliness that would have entailed. It certainly was not the season for the kind of Inquiry Mrs. Rodney had called for, one that would have provided a basis for healing and reconciliation.
The Prime Minister was present on the government benches when the PPP/C MPs abstained on their own motion for the Inquiry, thereby setting a new parliamentary precedent. The Prime Minister's latest pronouncements are entirely in keeping with that equivocation the PPP/C has from the beginning shown towards the Rodney Inquiry.
Simple decency demands that Mr. Hinds, in his next parliamentary outing, withdraw his unfounded pronouncements on the floor of the House.