GEORGETOWN (CMC):
The leading regional press freedom organisation has joined a number of Guyanese groups in condemning Tuesday's brutal slaying of four employees of the privately owned newspaper, Kaieteur News.
Gunmen executed the four after storming the Eccles, East Bank Demerara printery just before the newspaper went to press. Shazim Mohamed, one of the media workers originally thought dead in the attack, is still alive. He is, however, still unconscious.
In a letter to Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo, Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called for an immediate investigation to identify those responsible and to bring them swiftly to justice.
The statement, signed by Gonzalo Marroquin, chairman of IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, declared, "If this incident goes unpunished, that will produce a climate of uncertainty and self-censorship that is contrary to freedom of the press."
Meanwhile, newspapers throughout the country stepped up security yesterday and urged politicians to refrain from criticising the media.
Guyanese groups have also condemned the execution-style killings.
Lennox Grant and Wyvolyn Gager of the two-person Indepen-dent Refereeing Panel scrutinising the performance of the press in the run-up to the August 28 polls, said the aim of the attackers was to undermine the free press here.
Attempt to silence press
"This attack by rampaging gunmen, timed to coincide with the start of the newspaper's print run, can only be viewed as an attempt to silence the free press and destabilise democracy, especially during an election campaign," the panel said in a statement. "It must thus be seen as an attempt to roll back the freedom of the Guyanese people and the Guyanese media."
They encouraged the local media fraternity not to "retreat from their sacred responsibility, which is fearlessly to report the news, and to present commentary on events of the day."
Government, through state media, said the killings represented the most severe attack on press freedom in Guyana and urged Guyanese to condemn the act.
At the same time, the Guyana Action Party Rise Organise and Rebuild coalition which is contesting the 2006 polls on Wednesday also added its voice to the growing chorus of condemnation. The Guyana Chronicle newspaper and the Guyana Bar Association also railed against the killings and urged the local press not to be deterred from its duty.
