OPINION: The abuse of press freedom in Guyana today

Last Updated on Saturday, 20 September 2025, 16:06 by Writer

By Dr Randy Persaud

Recently, much has been made about press freedom, and freedom of expression in Guyana. Ironically, most of the claims are made by those who are most active in the press, on TV and social media.

The international community ought to take note of these developments because without careful scrutiny of the media space, one could end up making elementary errors as evidenced in the claims by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). This RSF has not done its homework, and like other neo-colonial apparatuses in the form of protecting democracy, takes the word of the opposition without doing any investigative journalism. How ironic is that?

For instance, it states that “[b]ecause members of the media regulatory authority are directly appointed by the president, the independence of certain media outlets, whose licenses can be revoked, is hampered.” Can RSF provide even the most rudimentary evidence of compromised independence. Is RSF aware that the Guyana Press Association (GPA) is actually the most powerful media organization in Guyana and that it is dominated by journalists and personalities openly hostile to the PPPC government?

One must wonder if RSF, et al, actually read the newspapers in Guyana. The letter sections of the two most widely-read papers are platforms for anti-PPPC operatives. They get published 10-1 compared to those who write in favour of the current administration. Pro-administration writers who are well informed and highly qualified are routinely pushed aside. Whenever they get a piece published, those articles are cut to protect core opposition interests.

Anyone who is a critic of the PPPC gets published in the top two privately-run newspapers. And what makes it worse, is that many of these writers promote division, cultivate antagonism, and even call “uprisings.”

Take Tacuma Ogunseye, for instance, who penned a lengthy (1168 words) Letter to the Editor in which he condemned the PNC-APNU for NOT engaging in street uprisings as an election strategy (KN 10/17/2025). In most countries, such a piece will never, I repeat, never be published.

I want the international community to read the following sentences by Tacuma Ogunseye.

The APNU loss “… reflected frustration with the opposition’s failure to practice resistance politics, especially the APNU…”

“Of equal importance was the failure of the African collective to turn the (2023) Local Government Elections into an African and Guyanese uprising to achieve its political objectives.”

“[A] political uprising would have prevented the government from reshaping the composition of the local bodies.”

“Since our community was not “battle-ready”, we needed a major pre-election struggle to energise the base and to allow the young generation voters to experience our collective strength.”

I ask if the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, Globe & Mail, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde, Het Laatste Nieuws, Le Soir, or NRC Handelsblad would (dare) publish anything of the sort quoted above? Even the newspapers in North America and Western Europe would not publish materials that advocate incitement to “uprisings” – which in the case of Guyana has always involved burning, looting, killing.

Mr. Ogunseye, in his own words, wanted the PNC-APNU to engage in street uprisings to advance African interests. He wanted this to be done since 2023, and then in the months leading up to the September 1, 2025 GRE.

Ogunseye also chastised Azruddin Mohamed’s WIN party for missing “…the opportunity to rally supporters in the streets to back their claims of either winning the election or being cheated.” Now that the APNU has been condemned at the polls, the ethnic nationalists want WIN to do the unsavoury work of street uprisings, street violence, and all that comes with these campaigns of destabilization.

I want the international community to note how brazenly Mr. Ogunseye is pushing the inflammatory rhetoric of election malpractices.

RSF has important work to do. It should take the time to do proper investigative journalism rather than rely on the likes of the GPA for information. If they do their work properly, they will find that the open-door media environment in Guyana is actually being abused by those who want neither development nor democracy.

Dr Randy Persaud is an employee of the Government of Guyana

Editor’s Note: The Guyana Press Association (GPA) is open to membership from all media houses including those from the state-owned and government-controlled radio, television and newspapers as well as privately-owned media that are aligned to political interests and shut out or severely limit the voices of critics. In fact, the GPA has members from those entities, but for legitimate fear of punishment, they are obliged to stay in the background and have been even discouraged from participating in Association-organised training programmes. Except for the overly abused Cyber Crime Act, there are other laws that aggrieved persons and institutions can seek redress under to test whether they violate press freedom or freedom of expression.