Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

MEDIA-CARIBBEAN: Trinidad Broadcast Code Raises Hackles

Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, May 10 2005 (IPS) - Trinidad and Tobago’s attempt to establish a national broadcasting code designed to keep a lid on simmering ethnic tensions has run into accusations of censorship from the industry it would govern.

”The code is unacceptable as it infringes on every citizen’s right to freedom of thought, expression and freedom of the press,” the Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association (TTBPA) said in a statement.

Government has proposed the code at a time of heightened racial debate in this twin-island republic.

Trinidad and Tobago has a population of 1.3 million of which the African and East Indian communities account for 39 and 40 percent respectively. Both the Afro- and Indo-Trinidadian communities have taken advantage of media liberalisation over the past 15 years to ratchet up racial themes, with the number of Indian-format radio stations, in particular, multiplying.

Stressing the need to regulate broadcasters’ behaviour, Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) Chairman Henry Charles reminded a recent forum on the draft code that ”hate radio” played a leading role in the Rwandan genocide.

Telecommunications officials strongly rejected accusations it was trying to clamp down on press freedoms.

”The Broadcasting Code does not seek to abrogate, abridge or authorise the abrogation, abridgement or infringement of these freedoms,” TATT said in a statement.

The code ”should not be construed as preventing or impeding the broadcast of the wide range of material necessary to help broadcasters fulfil their obligations and to operate in the public interest and be viable corporate entities,” it added.

Rather, it said the code, which would set parameters for on-air programming, was aimed at demonstrating that discussion of issues such as race, religion, and politics ”can aid in shaping social consensus on acceptable behaviour (and) introducing positive values.”

”Unfortunately, there has been the persistent dissemination of offensive information in some of the local broadcast media that results in denigration and a sense of humiliation among various sections of our national community, and may prompt negative inter-group perspectives and stereotyping and may even incite violence,” the government body said.

The broadcasters’ association said that the draft code had the effect of telling the population that it was being protected from violence, sexual content, and insults with regard to religion, race, and national background – but at a cost.

”It means that as a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, your right to a different view, one that someone else may not agree with, and your right to express that view, to express yourself is taken away,” the organisation said.

”Are we prepared to have that right to freedom of thought and expression taken away?” it added.

The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) also had assailed the draft code.

Wesley Gibbings, the group’s president, said the code violated the Chapultepec Declaration, an international treaty that forbids governments from suppressing media rights.

”This draft code has to be the most shameless attempt to impose a regime of censorship on the media. It must be vigorously opposed by everyone with an interest in preserving free speech and a free press,” Gibbings told IPS.

”Cleary its architects are oblivious to the spirit of some of our basic constitutional guarantees and this country’s specific obligations under Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights,” he added.

Gibbings said his organisation was taking up its concerns about the code with regional and international organisations including the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Free Expression of the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the pan-American body’s human rights wing, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

He said the draft code also had attracted attention from a number of other countries.

Guyana is the only Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country with a broadcast code but Jamaica and others have indicated their willingness to establish similar codes.

The code has come in for stiff criticism from local newspapers.

”The draft code reflects a paternalistic perspective which is embarrassing in a society seeking First World status,” Newsday said in an editorial.

It quoted the draft code as stating that ”programme-makers shall not make casual the use of names, words, or symbols regarded as sacred by religious or faith groups” and reflected that this could be interpreted as banning the use of the phrase ”Oh God” as an expression of exasperation, regret, or astonishment.

The code also prohibits broadcasters from transmitting ”material that suggests that violence does not injure people or have consequences for the perpetrator as well as the victim.”

TATT member St. Clair King defended the code as consistent with similar efforts in Australia, Nigeria, and New Zealand and added that ”there is no way that the industry will be self- or non-regulated.”

The authority was established last year and given the job of developing a broadcasting code to be promulgated by Parliament.

Government officials have said that were the code implemented without national media’s approval, it would be a prescription for chaos.

”You cannot unilaterally impose standards of conduct on the media without full cooperation and input of the media because a lot of it in the end is a question of judgement,” Information Minister Lenny Saith told reporters. ”If the people for whom you are setting out this code do not buy in, then you have a prescription for problems.”