Dear Editor,
This issue concerns everyone who lives or travels to Guyana, and it demands immediate attention and solutions, from a national perspective. Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed’s main Facebook page was seized and de-activated, truncating his 500,000-plus followers off from his regular platform for communication and political engagement, and violating many of his constitutional rights and freedoms. The Opposition has pointed to the PPP Government, alleging the shutdown is part of an effort to restrict Mohamed’s access to his supporters and his ability to communicate directly with the public.
This is not only about Mr. Mohamed. It’s about everyone. Any right-thing person must vehemently protest the alarming disappearance of the “Team Mohamed” Facebook page, reportedly followed by more than 500,000 people, while Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed’s phones was, and still remains in police custody.
Worse yet, the page became unavailable shortly after Mohamed announced that he intended to publish materials alleging corruption involving a G$200 million land transaction at Leonora concerning highly placed officials. The Guyana Police Force cannot avoid responsibility for property and data entrusted to its exclusive custody.
Once the police seized Mohamed’s phones, they assumed a strict custodial duty to preserve the devices, account credentials, confidential communications, electronic evidence and complete chain of custody. The Force must account for, explain or accept institutional responsibility for this illegal act. As state agents, they may have unlawfully accessed the phones and/or interferred with the Facebook page, and serious constitutional violations may have occurred, which mandate accountability, in accordance with:
Article 146 protects freedom of expression, including the freedom to hold opinions, receive and communicate information and remain free from interference with correspondence.
Article 147 protects freedom of assembly and association, including political association. A political Facebook page is a modern platform through which citizens organise, communicate and associate.
Article 143 protects persons and property against arbitrary search. Any examination of the phones must therefore rest upon lawful authority and remain within its permitted scope.
Article 142 protects against unlawful deprivation of property. Continued detention of phones, vehicles and personal belongings must be legally justified and no longer than reasonably necessary.
Article 144 secures the protection of the law and access to impartial judicial determination.
Article 149 prohibits discriminatory treatment by public authorities based on political opinions. Any selective interference with an opposition communication platform would strike directly at this constitutional guarantee.
We therefore demand:
This demand does not presume that individual police officers deleted the page. It insists upon a basic constitutional principle: when the State takes possession of a citizen’s property, the State must account for what happens to that property while it remains under State control.
Freedom of expression is meaningless if an opposition leader’s principal communication platform can disappear without a prompt, transparent and independently verifiable explanation. Freedom of association is endangered when hundreds of thousands of citizens suddenly lose access to a political forum.
The police must preserve the evidence, disclose the records, accept custodial responsibility and restore public confidence. Silence is complicity, not accountability, and coincidence and inexplicable obliterations are not adequate explanations. A Facebook page does not disappear on its own.
Defend constitutional government. Protect political expression. Preserve the evidence. Restore the page.