The Barbados Nation newspaper has condemned the withdrawal of ministry advertisements from Stabroek News (SN) and has called on the Guyana Government to review its position.
In an editorial in yesterday's edition entitled `A threat to the Stabroek', the Nation said it "strongly deplores this sad state of affairs and encourages the Guyana government to reconsider its position. We are confident that our region's newspapers and publishers will join in strong support of the Stabroek News".
SN Editor-in-Chief David de Caires has charged that the withdrawal of ads was politically motivated and followed a string of virulent attacks on the newspaper by President Bharrat Jagdeo beginning with the launch of the ruling party's re-election campaign last year. De Caires argued that the government had breached the Declaration of Chapultepec on press freedom which it signed several years ago.
The Government Informa-tion Agency (GINA) has meanwhile insisted that the withdrawal of ads from SN was purely a business decision. GINA has argued that it has gotten a "huge" response to its ads in the Guyana Chronicle and the Kaieteur News and that the Kaieteur News has a higher circulation than the Stabroek News. GINA has provided no information to substantiate its claims.
In the editorial yesterday, the Nation said the pulling of ads from SN "should also be of grave concern to freedom-loving people throughout the CARICOM community, and even beyond our region".
Setting out the positions of SN and GINA, the Nation said that "if the government's principal aim is to maximize returns for what it spends on advertising, it is difficult to understand how that can be achieved by withdrawing almost all advertising from this privately-owned journal".
The Nation posited that the fallout is likely to be substantial particularly at a time when "Guyana can do with all the favourable publicity it can muster within this region". The Barbadian newspaper added that the assessment by the Association of Caribbean Media (ACM) that the government's move appears to be a bid to stifle freedom of expression "is reasonable when set against the background of ongoing differences of opinion between the newspaper and Jagdeo's administration".
A number of organizations have come out in support of Stabroek News including the Guyana Human Rights Association, the Inter-American Press Association and the International Press Institute. The ACM has also requested a meeting with President Jagdeo on this matter but there has so far not been any response from the Office of the President.
Stabroek News Editor Anand Persaud last evening welcomed the position taken by the Barbados Nation and said that the newspaper was pleased with the regional solidarity shown on this crucial press freedom issue. Persaud said the silence of GINA and the Office of the President on the call to provide a credible basis for the cut-off of ads to SN exposed the emptiness of their arguments. He also noted that while President Jagdeo had said the policy was to advertise in the state paper and one private paper, GINA had taken a different position by presenting the "nebulous and clearly fabricated" argument that it had gotten "huge" responses to its ads in these two newspapers. Persaud added that whatever explanation might be provided by GINA in the future would be easily defeated by the continued ministry advertising in the Mirror newspaper which is a private newspaper with a small circulation but closely aligned to the ruling party and government.