Shal­iza Has­sanali

St Joseph MP Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish laws to guard against cit­i­zens who have their char­ac­ters de­famed by Face­book users and blog­gers.Deyals­ingh said one such group of peo­ple whose char­ac­ters are re­peat­ed­ly ridiculed on the so­cial me­dia was politi­cians.The is­sue was raised by Deyals­ingh in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day as the Li­bel and Defama­tion (Amend­ment) Bill 2013 was be­ing de­bat­ed.

Deyals­ingh said very of­ten sup­port­ers of par­ty A would ridicule sup­port­ers of par­ty B and vice ver­sa on Face­book."I have seen car­i­ca­tures of mem­bers op­po­site me on Face­book. I have seen car­i­ca­tures of mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion with guns and Nazi salute, and I find all these things are ut­ter­ly dis­taste­ful. This has no place in Trinidad."The guilty par­ties in­volved, Deyals­ingh said, should be con­demned."You know who you are. I take no joy in that. Why can't we look at In­ter­net pub­lish­ing."

Deyals­ingh said what the Gov­ern­ment should do was en­gage the House with laws to con­trol in­ter­net defama­tion.He al­so pro­posed that fines be im­posed on own­ers of me­dia hous­es rather than jour­nal­ists."And the fines have to be as such that it is an equiv­a­lent to jail time."Deyals­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment was on­ly cher­ry pick­ing Clause 9, which can open a pan­do­ra box that they might nev­er be able to close.