Editorial: The deportation of journalists from Antigua is cause for alarm
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| Published on Friday, June 15, 2007 |
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The unlawful detention and deportation of two Caribbean journalists by the police in Antigua and Barbuda is cause for alarm throughout the Caribbean and farther afield.
It reeks of a police state intent upon stifling criticism.
To the best of our knowledge, only the court in Antigua and Barbuda has the authority to deport anyone; the detention and deportation by the police cannot therefore be justified. This practice of deporting Caribbean citizens without due process has been in full swing for some time, but it is being extended to journalists in violation of the principles of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, to which the Government of Antigua and Barbuda is a signatory.
Specifically, the CARICOM arrangements provide for the free movement of journalists. The arrangements are not an a la carte menu from which the Antigua and Barbuda government can pick what it likes and ignore what it doesn’t.
Antigua and Barbuda is also a signatory to the Treaty of Chapultepec under which it committed itself to promote the work of journalists and not to suffocate the media. Even though the Treaty was signed in 2002 by the previous government, the present Baldwin Spencer administration has not formally repudiated it, even though its actions violate it.
In its manifesto for the 2004 general election, the United Progressive Party (UPP), which now forms the government in Antigua and Barbuda, pledged to “democratise the media” and “to end the monopoly of state media”. It went on to pledge “to transform (the state-owned) ABS radio and television into a genuine public broadcast system with the obligation to be an organ of expression for all voices in the society”. This has never happened even though the party’s political manifesto is prominently displayed on the official Government website.
Instead, the Minister of Information, Dr Edward Mansoor, is reported to hold the State media in a tight grip denying access to dissenting voices, despite formal complaints by opposition groups.
Indeed, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer, on national television, once accused Caribbean Net News of “economic terrorism” when one of our respected correspondents reported increasing crime in the country. Even as the prime minister was denouncing our legitimate news coverage, as untrue, the inconvenient truth for him was that another in a spate of armed robberies was being committed at that very moment.
Furthermore, the newspapers in Antigua were also carrying front-page stories of greatly increased incidents of crime about which they and the public were expressing considerable alarm.
No official reason has been given by the Baldwin Spencer administration for the detention and deportation of two well-known regional journalists, Vernon Khelewan and Lennox Linton. By their accounts, they were picked up by the police, detained and deported without explanation.
Khelewan was once editor of the Antigua Sun newspaper, owned by Texan and Antiguan billionaire, Allen Stanford. He said he was in Antigua visiting the offices of the Antigua Sun in the course of his duties.
Linton once worked for Observer Radio, owned by the Derrick family, who have close ties to the ruling UPP government. But, he was dismissed from the station after questioning the role of UPP financier Aziz Hadeed, who was made a minister in the government before being sacked in power struggle within the government. It is alleged that Hadeed was also a major advertiser with the Observer group, which owns both a pro-government radio station and newspaper on the island. Whatever, the truth of it, Linton was dismissed and has continued to be a government critic.
The Antigua and Barbuda authorities have violated binding international and regional treaties, its own laws and probably the Constitution of the country by depriving two Caribbean journalists not only of their right to work in Antigua and Barbuda, but also of their human rights.
Neither the Caribbean media nor other CARICOM governments should be silent on this issue. The Baldwin Spencer government should be told in no uncertain terms that this kind of authoritarianism in unacceptable, and both Khelawan and Linton should be given an apology and invited to continue to practice their profession. | | | | Reads : 1771 | | | |
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