The International Press Institute (IPI) today called on Guyana’s president to rescind an order that effectively prevents an opposition TV station from broadcasting in the run-up to general elections later this year.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that President Bharrat Jagdeo on Friday banned CNS TV-6 from broadcasting for four months, citing an allegedly slanderous comment it aired in May regarding Bishop Juan Edghill, head of the government’s ethnic relations commission.

The broadcast at issue included an accusation by local commentator and former Parliament member Tony Vieira that Edghill was a government sycophant who engaged in doublespeak. Vieira also reportedly claimed that the bishop, a Protestant, was not doing enough for Catholics.

Guyanese online news website Demerara Waves reported that Jagdeo said the suspension was recommended by Guyana’s Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB). “The content was intended to incite religious intolerance, was to disparage religious values in this country,” Jagdeo commented.

The president rejected opposition charges that the suspension was unconstitutional and that its timing was related to the upcoming elections, which the country’s Constitution requires by the end of the year. He also said his order was a reduction of the eight-month sentence the ACB had recommended.

The station’s owner – Chandra Narine Sharma, a talk show host and leader of the Justice For All political party – reportedly said he had little hope of overturning the order and agreed to the four-month sanction in order to avoid further economic harm to the station and its 30 employees.

The Guyana Observer reported yesterday that the Guyana Press Association (GPA) commented on the suspension: “Once again, the GPA is troubled by the process by which decisions are arrived at to impose such sanctions.”

IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said: “We are greatly bothered by this blatant act of censorship, especially coming right before an election. While we do not condone intolerance or hate speech, we fail to see the need to suspend all of the station’s broadcasts and to punish its employees, and we call on the president to reconsider the sanction.”

Demerara Waves reported that Jagdeo’s order marked the third time the station, which has operated since the 1990s, has been suspended for broadcast violations. Reporters Without Borders said that the station was suspended in 2005 for stirring up “public disorder.”

The AP described the station’s programming as a “mix of Indian-Hindu programs, opposition call-in sessions and Bollywood movies”.