As there continues to be mounting concerns over the Cybercrime Bill that is currently before a parliamentary Special Select Committee for review, a Trinidadian based transparency activist believes that the contents of the proposed legislation breaches the Constitution of Guyana.
On Thursday May 3, World Press Freedom Day was observed under the theme: “Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and the Rule of Law”. However, this observance comes at a time when many feel press freedom and freedom of expression in Guyana is being threatened by sections of the proposed Cybercrime legislation such as penalising whistle-blowers, institutionalisation of criminal defamation and sedition clauses.
Delivering the feature address at a World Press Freedom Day lecture at Moray
Transparency Activist Afra Raymond
House on Thursday, activist Afra Raymond, said that Section 18 of the proposed Bill, which deals with those matters, clearly attempts to traverse and restricts the right of freedom of expression with respect to how people discussion affairs.
“In particular, the Section appears to be aimed at the conduct of the State and the conduct of official affairs, and criminal offences are put in. The Act itself is creates quite a number of criminal offences so I’m not in support of that approach. I actually think, apart from it being unsupportable and quite likely in breach of the Constitution and Guyana’s treaty obligations… there is also the question of enforceability and bringing the system into ridicule,” Raymond posited.
The Transparency Activist went onto point out that while the proposed legislation maybe a “satisfactory piece of law” as in that it could withstand a test in court, it is still flawed. He further explained that people are going to create memes, cartoons, calypsos, and make fun on social media about something that government is doing that they do not approve of or like, asking how the State intends to prosecuted those persons who have anonymous profiles or those who live in other countries.
“…Who are they going to prosecute because the way the world is now, all of those things would emanate from outside of Guyana… So that’s the world now, the very said thing that you try to fight with (cyberspace bully and crimes) is not even in the room,” he asserted.
To this end, Raymond opined that there need not be such heavy restrictions and called for the Cybercrime legislation to be reviewed, especially with regards to the
A section of the gathering
whistle-blowing section which has a three to 10 years imprisonment penalty for anyone “illegally” releasing information from a public office.
“So that needs to also be rectified. It’s a mismatch between whistle-blowing and cybercrime, and we have to decide where we stand on this question of information, where we stand on this question of growth and development. Can you have growth and development if you have these serious restrictions on information? If it’s not a national defence matter, there is no real serious ground for having [to] continue those protections and shields, and so on,” the Transparency Activist posited.
This position was also echoed by President of the Transparency International Guyana Inc. (TIGI), Troy Thomas, who said that a free press is an important element in the fight against corruption and that the proposed Cybercrime Bill seeks to hinder avenues which media operatives use, i.e. whistle-blowers, to highlight issues and keep government in check. He added to that the proposed legislation also sets parameters within which persons should express themselves, particularly on social media platforms.
On this note, President of the Guyana Press Association (GPA), Nazima Raghubir, reiterated the need for policy makers in the National Assembly to come together to correct the legislation, pointing out that a truly independent media is vitally necessary to guard against societal ills such as human rights abuses, electoral malpractices, lack of transparency and accountability and gender-based inequalities.
“Our association takes this opportunity to publicly urge the Government of Guyana and the Opposition to discuss and arrive at a consensus to delete from the proposed Cybercrime legislation, provisions that will amount to the institutionalisation of criminal defamation. Those provisions, we contend, must be removed because they are not in accordance with the global shift towards the removal of criminal defamation from the law books of several countries, and these include a number of Caribbean countries. Guyana will be retrogressing instead of progressing by entrenching the criminalisation of freedom of expression if certain sections in the Cybercrime Bill are enacted into law,” the GPA President stated.
