Rights activists Freddie Kissoon and Mark Benschop yesterday led a protest outside the offices of the Guyana Chronicle, at Lama Avenue, Bel Air, over its publication of an editorial that they said could incite racism.
The July 2, 2012 editorial, ‘Opposition rampages to sow disunity in the country,’ was criticised by the Roman Catholic Church earlier this week and according to Kissoon, it harkened back to the racial strife which the nation experienced in the 1960s.
“When an editorial can invoke a response from the long quiet Roman Catholic Church, you must realise that the PPP and the PPP government have crossed the line,” he said, while adding that the church would not ascend to that level “of rhetoric or anger” if they did not see a danger.
Kissoon called it “the second graphic manifestation” by the PPP over the past year, after it had claimed that its supporters were prevented from voting in Georgetown.
Kissoon called on all stakeholders, non-governmental organisations and the business community to support a call for the newspaper to be sanctioned for the article.
“When an editorial could stoop so low… I think we have gone way beyond the line in the duty of a government,” Benschop added, while calling for an audit of the books of the newspaper and demanding that the newspaper apologise to Afro-Guyanese youths for the publication of the editorial.
AFC member Gerhard Ramsaroop noted at the protest that the Guyana Chronicle continues to be used as a political tool to propagate on behalf of the political parties in government.
He termed the editorial “a new low” and charged that the newspaper was being used to create mischief and divisions in society.
The Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of the Roman Catholic Church earlier this week said that it was “deeply disturbed” at the Guyana Chronicle’s editorial, which it dubbed racially inflammatory.
“The contents of this editorial crossed by no small measure the acceptable lines of responsible opinion choosing instead to use thinly disguised inflammatory language,” the JPC said in a statement.
It added that according to a published report on the Ethnic Relations Commis-sion’s website, there are provisions in the Racial Hostility Act, Chapter 23:01 of the laws of Guyana for preventing conduct tending to excite or attempting to excite hostility or ill-will against any section of the public or against any person on the grounds of their or his race. “This includes by written (including printed) matter,” the release said.
