Dear Editor,
I am so relieved to hear from my government’s most credible spokesman that my President never called my opposition leaders terrorists. Of course he didn’t. Presi-dents of dignified nations don’t accuse anyone of capital crimes without factual evidence. Presidents don’t beg terrorists to come and talk on the very subject-matter of their terrorist acts. They pass the matter to their security forces.
And if a President is misreported by his government’s official news agency and by his government-owned newspaper, clearly disciplinary measures will follow. At the very least someone senior will get suspended, if not charged for incompetence more serious than merely mishandling money. To falsely report a defamatory statement, even by one immune from prosecution (during or after his term of office), must lay those reporters open to legal action. No members of parliament could have a charge of terrorism hanging over their names and future electoral prospects without calling on the independent judiciary to sanction the publishers.
And the government ministers who repeated the charge of terrorism did so at a press conference, not within the Parliament where they too are privileged from prosecution. Even if they too got the statement wrong, as we are glad to hear from the very top, they can’t expect the falsely accused to take their published slander without such protest as might be available to them.
Surely this is how grown-ups behave under the rule of law, let alone in civilized behaviour in a proudly democratic nation.
Yours faithfully,
Gustav Henderson
