Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 10, 2011 News
President Bharrat Jagdeo announced last evening that he would put Channel Six back on the air and implement the four-month ban from December 1.
But Channel Six owner Chandranarine Sharma said he had not received an official word from the President and would await a signed order before he turns his transmitter back on.
The President made the announcement at the rally of the incumbent People’s Progressive Party (PPP) at Kitty, Georgetown.
Channel Six has been off the air since last week Monday after Jagdeo implemented a four-month ban on the grounds that Sharma breached his licence by airing a commentary by former opposition Parliamentarian Anthony Vieira on May 4.
In the commentary, Vieira had claimed that the Chairman of the Ethnic Relations Commission, Bishop Juan Edghill, was doing nothing to safeguard Catholics in a dispute with Protestants. President Jagdeo had said that the comments were reprehensible to the constitution as it sought to sow discord among different denominations of Christians.
Jagdeo said that he was postponing the ban owing to cries by opposition that they would be disadvantaged in the run up to the elections, since Channel Six, one of the country’s most watched television stations, was being used by them to outline their plans and programmes.
Donald Ramotar, the PPP’s Presidential Candidate, said that now the opposition parties will have no excuses for their campaign and participation in the elections.
The Guyana Press Association (GPA) had joined media owners in calling for the lifting of the four-month ban placed on CNS TV Channel Six.
The GPA had called on the Guyana Elections Commission, to which the opposition political parties had also appealed, to intervene.
It was the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB) that had recommended the suspension of CNS TV 6 owing to the airing of a commentary by Vieira.
Edghill had moved to the courts to seek redress, and Sharma had apologized.
Activists against the ban said the President could have used his discretion in the matter given that Sharma had apologized and also given that Edghill had sought the court’s intervention.
International press freedom watchdog Reporters without Borders has called the suspension by Jagdeo ‘appalling.’
The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) said the announcement deferring suspension of CNS6 is testimony to the fact that a people united and unrelenting can achieve what’s justly theirs.
The GTUC, civil society activists, and political parties had called for the reopening of Channel Six before the elections in the struggle for the right to freedom of expression.
The Union and others continue to press for open and equal access to the state-owned and operated NCN and Guyana Chronicle.
“The people of this country continue to demand open and equal access to the state media, since our tax dollars fund the upkeep of these institutions,” the GTUC stated.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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