…in AFC ranks
Well…well…well!! What’s going on here IN THE AFC’s top tier? Chairman Ramjattan says he’s FOR the sedition clause, and Leader Trotman says he ISN’T?? Ramjattan tried to pass off his retrograde stance by claiming some sort of misguided pragmatism: sedition’s already on the books, so Clause 18 in the Cybercrime Bill is just putting in in the “stratosphere” (sic) of the internet!! Can you believe this fella?
Well, your Eyewitness doesn’t!!” Ramjattan’s just playing to the PNC gallery – which is where the drive for the draconian law to silence the PPP is coming from. As Jagdeo pointed out, Clause 18 is the PNC’s 21st century version of the National Security Act, which it inherited from the British but extended after Independence to jail several PPP activists. Ramjattan fully well knows this, but, unlike Trotman, has to prove his loyalty to the PNC. More to the point, he has to sing for his supper!! Trotman’s already PNC, so he can play to the liberal gallery of the younger PNCites.
But coming back to Ramjattan: as a lawyer who presumably doesn’t leave all research to his legal clerks, he’d know there’re all kind of arcane common laws “received” from England at Independence. While maybe Guyana doesn’t have the resources to do a complete makeover of our laws to bring them up to date, surely when one of them comes up on his radar, he should recommend that Guyana be brought into the modern age?
Look what has happened to the common law on sedition in the land where it originated 700 years ago: THEY TOOK IT OFF THEIR BOOKS in 2009!! Then Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, Claire Ward, explained: “Sedition and seditious and defamatory libel are arcane offences – from a bygone era, when freedom of expression wasn’t seen as the right it is today… Freedom of speech is now seen as the touchstone of democracy, and the ability of individuals to criticise the state is crucial to maintaining freedom”.
Why do you keep a law that was meant to prevent citizens from criticising their kings at a time when they were supposed to have been appointed by GOD?? To criticise the king was to criticise God – which was BLASPHEMY, and was punishable by death, if need be. Sedition is the secular version of blasphemy against the king!! Imagine publication of Tom Paine’s “Rights of Man” was suppressed under the sedition laws? Is this where the PNC wants to take us back??
Ramjattan is once again shamelessly supporting the PNC Govt drive to fulfil the legacy of Burnham, as he promised.
In no uncertain terms, he should be told: Haul yuh ass!!
…and PNC-Portuguese relations
But it would appear in one area of national life that Granger’s striking out on a different path from both of his PNC Presidential predecessors (PPP???!!) –niceing up relations with our Portuguese citizens. Some may remember Hoyte’s outburst against “the Portuguese Mafia” when the Stabroek News – owned by the Portuguese David De Caires – was critical of some of his positions. Who knows…if he were in power then, maybe he’d have charged De Caires with seditious libel??!!
But Burnham was even more bitter against the Portuguese when he said D’Aguiar was trying to buy the PNC like a “case of used drink bottles”!! Before the CIA-arranged union, D’Aguiar had proposed funding the campaign if Burnham would concede half of the positions to the UF!! Burnham, whose motto was “tek first licks but not last licks”, actually dashed a “last lash” on D’Aguiar and his pretentions when he was effectively thrown out of the coalition before the 1968 elections and Burnham bought his MPs like used drinks bottles!!
What’s neutered Granger? Family?
…against PPP supporters
There’s a line which even a satirical column shouldn’t cross in a divided society like ours. And it’s up to the Press Association to monitor that line.
How come they haven’t pulled up Dem Boys for saying the murderous pirates are “Jagdeo’s supporters””??