Criminal defamation laws stifling free speech

AS THE Caribbean yesterday joined the rest of the world in observing World Press Freedom Day, Wesley Gibbings, president of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, bemoaned that politicians insist on the retention of criminal defamation statutes, despite the evidence that they pose a danger to free speech and freedom of the press.

"In this regard, we call on the Government of Jamaica and all other Caribbean community countries to take action to erase the common-law offences of criminal libel, including blasphemous, obscene and seditious libel from their statute books," Gibbings said in a statement.

He added: "It is a position endorsed by a Joint Select Committee of the Jamaican Parliament in 2008, following submission of the Justice Hugh Small report that very year."

mindset still unchanged

He further noted that though the media landscape in the Caribbean was undergoing a measure of change, such change was not being matched by a corresponding revolution in official mindset.

"Despite repeated promises, the Government of Guyana persists in its refusal to award new radio broadcasting licenses, and has used state advertising revenues as a tool of media punishment and reward. The state media in Trinidad and Tobago still wrestle with the spectre of political control, and there is evidence that a coercive broadcast content quota system will return, courtesy state regulators, to the front burner in due course."

World Press Freedom Day was observed under the theme, '21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers'.

"It is clear the social and political requirements to achieve the ideals of free expression declared in 1948 remain absolutely pertinent to the challenges of 2011. In the Caribbean, there is particular relevance, especially within the context of our essentially authoritarian, post-colonial culture," he noted.