(RSF/IFEX) – Guyana’s leading daily, “The Stabroek News”, has learned it is now under a total effective boycott by state advertisers after the Government Information Agency (GINA) on 6 February 2007 cancelled advertising space booked in the paper for the Guyana Revenue Authority. Since November 2006, this was the only body still placing advertising in […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Guyana’s leading daily, “The Stabroek News”, has learned it is now under a total effective boycott by state advertisers after the Government Information Agency (GINA) on 6 February 2007 cancelled advertising space booked in the paper for the Guyana Revenue Authority. Since November 2006, this was the only body still placing advertising in “The Stabroek News”. Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) and Guyana Power and Light – two public companies under private management – have also decided not to advertise with the paper. The management of the two companies, while denying having acted on the orders of GINA, did not offer any explanation. The government itself referred only to “accounting reasons” before refusing to respond to protests from the Guyana Press Association.
“The Stabroek News” takes a strong critical line towards the government of President Bharrat Jagdeo. Reporters Without Borders reminded the president that the Chapultepec Declaration on freedom of information and expression, which he has signed, commits him not to use state advertising as a means of rewarding or punishing media.
