GUYANA | Georgetown Mayor and Opposition MP Charged with Racial Hostility, Cybercrime

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, December 16, 2022 - The Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine was today charged with  using a computer system to attempt to excite ethnic divisions on the ground of race, contrary to the Cybercrime Act as well as the offense of attempting to excite hostility or ill will on the ground of race, contrary to the Racial Hostility Act. He was also charged with the offence of obstructing traffic in relation to placing a wooden pallet on New Market Street in the town.

The Opposition Coalition's Member of Parliament (MP)  Sherrod Duncan was also charged with the  offence of using a computer system to attempt to excite ethnic divisions on the ground of race, contrary to the Cybercrime Act; and the offense of attempting to excite hostility or ill will on the ground of race, contrary to the Racial Hostility Act.

Member of their legal team Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde said their clients have not committed the offences and the charges are efforts by the government to shut the Opposition down.They have each been placed on $200,000 bail on the race-related charges and gagged from speaking about the cases. The other members of the legal team include attorneys- at-law Amanza Walton-Desir and Darren Wade.

Forde told the media that the gag orders are unconstitutional  and an unprecedented move which may likely be challenged in the High Court.

Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton has accused the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government of using the Guyana Police Force to target and harass Opposition supporters, while the leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC) party MP Khemraj Ramjattan, said little by little, drip by drip, the government is becoming authoritarian and the situation is getting very dire.

Mayor Dismissed as a Reserve Staff Sergeant by GDF

In the meantime, a report from Gordon Mosley at News Source Guyana says the Guyana Defence Force has dismissed the Georgetown Mayor, Pandit Ubrj Narine as a Reserve Staff Sergeant of the force. The GDF dispatched a letter to him indicating that his services as a reserve member of the army were no longer needed.

The Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) in a response says it  is "astonished that a military organization like the GDF is ignorant of military processes. A rank can only be "disembodied" after that rank was called up from a reservist status to full time duty in war time, and is being reverted to a normal peacetime role at the end of the war - back to being a reservist. Consequently, according to the GDF announcement, the Mayor retains his reservist status."

According to CGID, "The PPP government continues to destroy Guyana's democracy by coercing institutions of the state as well as Guyana's Disciplined Forces to do its dirty work and conduct political vendettas on its behalf. The regime has completely destroyed the Guyana Police Force and transformed it into a PPP vendetta operation . Similarly, the PPP regime has now permanently damaged the image of the GDF by directing the Force to purportedly discharge Pandit Ubraj Narine as a reserve officer for frivolous, partisan political reasons."

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