GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov. 04, 2014, CNS – The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) has expressed “deep concern” over a recorded phone call in which a person identified as the attorney general of Guyana appeared to suggest that staff members of the daily Kaieteur News risked deadly reprisal if the paper continued its critical reporting.
Late last month, the newspaper published the recording and a written transcript of what it said was a phone call made by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall to one of the paper’s senior reporters.
IPI said that Nandlall has not denied that the call took place and Guyanese media have widely reported the voice to be his.
Guyana’s two main opposition parties, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC), have called for Nandlall’s resignation in response to the recording.
The Guyana Press Association (GPA) in a statement termed the comments “reckless, irresponsible and outrageous”, and demanded that the government condemn them.
But the Donald Ramotar administration has said it is standing behind Nandlall and accused the newspaper of what it described as “the despicable act” of distorting and manipulating a private conversation of a government minister, “whose conversation was illegally recorded…”.
“We believe in the integrity and professionalism of the Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, and stand by him,” the statement said, noting that the Kaieteur News newspaper “has sustained an intensive, vicious attack on members of the government of Guyana, using its media power to distort even private conversations that it illegally records”.
Nandlall has since filed a GUY$30 million (One Guyana dollar =US$0.003 cents) lawsuit against the Kaieteur News newspaper.
IPI Press Freedom Manager Barbara Trionfi has since expressed solidarity with the Guyanese media community.
“The safety of journalists is an extremely serious matter and we are deeply troubled by the alleged contents of this recording,” she said.
“Insofar as these comments risk giving the impression that violence is an appropriate response to unfavourable media coverage, such statements have an impact far beyond the individual newspaper in question: they place all of Guyana’s journalists in danger.
“The Government of Guyana should focus now on making it clear that violence against the press will not be tolerated, and on reassuring the international community that it takes its responsibility to protect Kaieteur News staff and all other media practitioners in the country seriously,” she added.
In 2013, IPI conducted a press freedom mission to Guyana under the auspices of its criminal defamation campaign in the Caribbean.
CNS/db/2014
