Standing against threats to press freedom … PPP was ‘spiritually’ in France – Rohee

The Minister of Home Affairs and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee, was all over the place yesterday as he sought to defend the stance taken by him and his Party on matters relating to the attack on press freedom in and out of Guyana.
Forty-four world leaders, among them Muslim and Jewish statesmen, linked arms to lead more than a million French citizens through the streets as they paid tribute to those killed when Islamic radicals reacted to cartoons carried in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
President Francois Hollande and leaders from Germany, Italy, Turkey, Britain as well as Israel and the Palestinian territories moved off from the central Place de la Republique ahead of a sea of French and other flags.
Seventeen people, including journalists and police, were killed in three days of violence that began on Wednesday last with a shooting attack on the political weekly, Charlie Hebdo, known for its satirical attacks on Islam and other religions.
The attackers, two French-born brothers of Algerian origin, singled out the weekly for its publication of cartoons depicting and ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad. The bloodshed ended on Friday with hostage-taking at a Jewish deli in which four hostages and the gunman were killed.
In response to questions as to whether his Party is in solidarity with the Parisian victims, Rohee said that the PPP did not have to be in Paris physically to stand in solidarity with the victims and against the attack on press freedom. He said that the “PPP was there spiritually.”
Rohee added, “Our (PPP’s) association with such issues goes way back. We have fought against terrorists all these years; we know what the monsters are like both as a Party and as a country, so you know when you speak about those events in Paris over the past week or so, the spirit of the PPP was there.”
The politician said that the PPP has invoked its “past experiences and link it to present experience; that is  why we have a fulsome understanding of what these things are about, the root cause why these occurrences take place , it is a profound issue, a very profound issue.”
At this point Rohee was reminded last week when he was contacted to speak on this “very profound issue” and how Guyana can directly relate to it.
He was contacted in his capacity as Minister of Home Affairs to say whether or not the Paris tragedy would have urged him to put security systems in place for Kaieteur News reporters in light of the violent threats made.
When contacted Rohee was less than sympathetic and showed total disregard for the lives of those working at Kaieteur News.
The Minister became upset when reminded yesterday that he was contacted for a comment pertaining to the occurrences in Paris and the distinct possibility of something similar happening in Guyana, given the Attorney General Anil Nandlall’s aggressive warnings. Rohee, “I am not so sure I should get into that.
“This thing has to have balance. It doesn’t follow that because a journalist picks up a phone and calls me, I can only speak for myself…If a journalist picks up the phone and calls me, does it follow ipso facto that automatically I must answer that person and give that person an answer, and because I don’t and I say excuse me, that journalist feels upset and writes about it.”
He asked, “What about my side, I have a side too. The journalist has a side working professionally for a newspaper. You get paid to do your job; I get paid to do my job. I have my view, you have your views and it doesn’t mean that because I didn’t give the answer to the journalist that the journalist wanted that that should be perceived in a particular way. I think we need to be fair and balanced here.
Rohee is among the majority of Government officials who refused to speak out on the transgressions of the Attorney General, Anil Nandlall.
Wednesday’s shocking attack on the journalists in Paris has made Nandlall’s threats take on even greater significance in terms of the manner in which the attack occurred. Kaieteur News has experienced the cold-blooded murder of five of its employees to terrorist elements and, like Charlie Hebdo, had been firebombed.