Bloggers in support of the People’s Partnership target persons whom they deem to be against the Government, or persons whom they feel are portraying the Government and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in a negative light. Not only have journalists become a major focus of these bloggers, but journalists themselves, some of whom are employed by the State and even a videographer in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), have been spearheading the cyber assault on their colleagues. These bloggers have got as far as posting openly racist remarks as they wage their campaign against specific female journalists whose exposes or commentaries hold up the Government to scrutiny, especially on issues of corruption, public accountability and transparency. The attacks have been broad-based and, apart from journalists, Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley is also a prime target. Unsuspecting members of the public who voice their opinions against the Government are attacked racially and accused of being aligned to another political party.
Sources told the Express that the Partnership bloggers are paid at least $6,000 a month and are supplied with laptops to launch their attacks.
They are also given cellphones, cell cards and are recruited through advertisements at The University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus, and/or are recommended by party executives.
The bloggers are given fake profiles and on a daily basis supplied with content to post promoting the Government and lambasting those against it.
Sources told the Express that a former adviser to a minister is one of the individuals who supply content for the bloggers.
An investigation undertaken by the Express also revealed that videographer Jason Lewis has been using Facebook to launch a barrage of personal attacks against Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) investigative journalist Asha Javeed.
CCN is the parent company of the Express and TV6.
Lewis has also been attacking veteran journalist and Sunday Express columnist Sunity Maharaj.
Sources say Lewis is employed at the OPM in the Communications Department.
He started there in June 2014 and has a three-year contract under which he is paid a flat salary of $6,000 monthly and $1,000 travelling allowance.
He accompanies Persad-Bissessar on State visits abroad.
Lewis, sources told the Express, is currently under police investigation following the posting on Facebook of a video involving Javeed.
This video had been removed from YouTube in 2013, but was posted on several forums last month after being uploaded on March 23 by Lewis.
In a Facebook post dated March 23 on Wired868, which is operated by online journalist Lasana Liburd, Lewis threatened to release the contents of a police report involving Javeed.
He later made good his threat and even boasted about it online. “I will keep circulating as a sign of protest...” he wrote.
Lewis claimed on Facebook that his attacks against Javeed and other media personnel came following Liburd’s intervention in a matter involving Maharaj and talk show host Marcia Braveboy.
Liburd had defended Maharaj against the attacks.
Grenada-born Braveboy, who is employed at State-owned Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG), had launched persistent and sometimes slanderous attacks on Maharaj.
However, over the past three months, Braveboy’s personal attacks reached a new low when she made reference to Maharaj’s late husband, economist Lloyd Best, questioning the status of their relationship prior to his death.
Braveboy is a talk show host at 91.1 FM, and has been in T&T for the past ten years, having been employed under the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Apart from being a talk show host, she has been employed in print and electronic media, the Ministry of Social Development, the Housing Development Corporation and the Government Informative Services Ltd (GISL).
The Express contacted Braveboy last Saturday seeking a comment on allegations that she is being paid to blog against Maharaj and other journalists.
Braveboy declined to answer the question and instead said, “I am a journalist and not a blogger. I have been writing about journalists six years now. The answer cannot be yes or no. I work for Talk City, I work for Caribbean News Now.”
Asked about her slanderous posts regarding journalists and Maharaj, Braveboy maintained she never posted anything regarding Maharaj and her deceased husband. Told the post is dated February 19 this year, Braveboy said, “Someone else posted that.”
Contacted for a comment on Tuesday, CNMG chief executive officer (CEO) Ken Ali said he was unaware of any attacks made by Braveboy against journalists. He said Braveboy is a freelancer at the station and not an employee, so the views expressed by her are not those of CNMG. “Whatever she writes, it’s on her own. I don’t understand how that could be a reflection on CNMG. Express journalists have been harsh towards me and I didn’t hyperventilate over it. Whatever she does is her right, she’s just a presenter with us,” Ali said.
Asked whether CNMG has a code of ethics on social media, Ali said, “We have a code of conduct for all our journalists. I don’t understand the link between CNMG and Ms Braveboy. We have an editorial policy, I don’t know if it covers a freelance person, I would investigate what she has been writing.”
Ali further said the Express reported on a personal e-mail he had written and “it was a breach in the law, but I didn’t say anything. I would try to find out what she’s (Braveboy) been writing”.
Also contacted was Government’s Rapid Response Unit director Andy Johnson.
Johnson, who once headed GISL, said he doesn’t think there’s a policy in place for either a contract or freelancer.
“In the case of Braveboy, I think you should draw it to the attention of the CEO at CNMG. What I can say with certainty is that the attacks aren’t sanctioned by the Government,” Johnson said.
Braveboy’s apparent obsession with attacking Maharaj had caused Liburd to issue a post in Maharaj’s defence, which led to Braveboy mounting a counter-attack on Liburd and Maharaj.
Even CNC3 executive producer Sampson Nanton found himself in the mix as he sought to make it clear that it was he, and not Maharaj, who was the author of a CNC3 People Meter question that had provoked one of Braveboy’s attacks on Maharaj.
ACM condemns attacks
This and the persistent attacks led to the March 24 release by the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM). The ACM, in its release, condemned what it termed the “unlawful and defamatory social media attacks on women journalists in Trinidad and Tobago”.
“We believe that a well-resourced, concerted attempt is being made to intimidate and to smear the characters of some journalists in the face of their investigative and analytical work,” the ACM said.
The statement, signed by its president, Clive Bacchus, said the ACM had been advised that in the run-up to the general election due this year, there has been an increase in social media attacks, some of them legally actionable, against targeted journalists.
The ACM, which groups media organisations throughout the English, French, Dutch and Spanish-speaking Caribbean, said the video, which had been withdrawn by YouTube in 2013, “on account of violations of its guidelines on privacy and the portrayal of minors”, was circulated via social media channels in a clear attempt to defame Javeed.
“Our international partners are being appropriately advised of the developing situation,” the regional media umbrella group said.
Flashback
‘Get Rowley’
United National Congress (UNC) strategist Rodney Charles, in an e-mail sent last year to a number of UNC operatives, instructed that a “full-scale attack” be launched on People’s National Movement (PNM) leader Keith Rowley from May 19, “the morning after his expected landslide victory” in the PNM internal elections, was to be launched.
The e-mail was revealed by PNM senator Camille Robinson-Regis at a public meeting in the Croisee on June 5, last year.
The e-mail was dated May 16, 2014 and states, “We absolutely need to bring down his polling ratings. We are therefore asking you (and all our supporters), in whatever way you can, to be part of that attack.”
“Try also to have short sound bites that speak to his negatives. His name should be side by side with the negative, eg Rowley is unfit to lead. He is too arrogant. He does not entertain views different from his.”
Among the persons to whom the e-mail was addressed were ministers Suruj Rambachan and Vasant Bharath, UNC general secretary and adviser in the Office of the Prime Minister Dave Tancoo, other advisers in the Prime Minister’s Office, including Shem Baldeosingh, Housing Development Corporation (HDC) chairman Rabindra Moonan, Express columnist Capil Bissoon and former T&T high commissioner to Canada Philip Buxo.
“Let us in our various and even separate ways do what we have to do to start putting KR (Keith Rowley) on the defensive. He has shown himself unable to weather sustained attacks,” Charles stated.
“We propose three weeks of attacks that will factor in the union march and our anniversary celebrations. After this we will test his polling figures to see which resonates and what changes we need to make,” said the UNC e-mail.
What law says on sedition
Section four of the Sedition Act of 1920 says that - “A person is guilty of an offence who does or attempts to do, or makes any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do, any act with a seditious intention or communicates any statement having a seditious intention.
Section three of the Act defines sedition as such - A seditious intention is an intention to raise discontent or disaffection amongst inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago; to engender or promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between one or more sections of the community on the one hand and any other section or sections of the community on the other hand; or feelings of ill-will towards, hostility to or contempt for any class of inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago distinguished by race, colour, religion, profession, calling or employment.”
Racist agenda
Sources told the Express that there has been an increase in fake profiles being used on Facebook to attack journalists, members of the public and high-profile citizens.The most prominent is “Viveka Jordan”.
Other profiles used to attack journalists, opposition politicians and citizens include Allan Karim, Drucilla Karim, Johnny Choon, Dave Persad, Siva Gobin Ramsingh and Glen Rambharack.
On December 21, 2014, Choon during a conversation with Allan Karim wrote: “Are we going to discuss date and time of the sacred event? My view is that we gather our protesters and then we compromise date and time. Give these niggers a box of vital supply and run a hose we’ll have them there all week.”
“Allan could you kindly get word to our Honourable AG that these niggers that support the PNM need cussing, and the Indian that surround the PNM need killing. Let us get rid of these stink, black monkeys once and for all. Let us dig deep and trash de wajang Rowley so bad that the country will call for him to step down.”
Snapshots of a conversation between Drucilla Karim and Ramsingh with the latter stating, “I agree with Choon these Indian that stickin up in dem creole a.....does shame me..... Anyhow Allan get the post up fast let us handle Rowley good and proper.”
Karim’s (D) reply was, “One thing is for sure I not coming back to NO stinking creole PNM government. We have to show Rowley and supporters that Indian people have the brains, creole people come in Trinidad to work as slaves.
Someone inbox me when the post is up”.
Rambharack, during a posting with Stephen Mathison, stated, “Go learn about your (obscene language deleted) own race Stephen Mathison. Niggers like you should remain cleaning the white man latrine! You need the whips again to crack on your back! No wonder the white man does call your type stupid nigga! You want to talk about other race well come let me teach you about yours (obscene language deleted) breath.”
Mathison’s response was, “Hmmmm...just can’t believe one Human is so stupid...Glen Rambharack, you are certainly moving around with stupidity for a whole crowd.”
Karim (A) has also been instrumental in disseminating videos showing the private life of Javeed and her children.
The Express sent messages via Facebook seeking a comment from all named and received responses from Choon, Persad, Karim (A) and Ramsingh, all of whom denied posting any racist rants.
Ramsingh refused to answer the questions posed, instead stating that a female PNM activist should be asked about Photoshop.
Choon said: “I have never made those remarks, never will. It is not who I am. Further there is sufficient evidence that those are fabricated messages and the source of those fabrications are known to my lawyers. Further, I am not a paid blogger. I receive no compensation whatsoever.”
Persad said: “No, I am not a UNC paid blogger, or a Government paid blogger. My profile is not fake. I do not use my real picture because of an unpleasant experience I had with some Facebook friends. I don’t normally get into racists posting.”
Karim (A), in an e-mailed response, said someone had created a fake account using his name and picture in an attempt to make him look bad.
“These malicious posts were fabricated and then posted all over social media to make it appear as if the comments were mine.
“I have evidence certain PNM agents are behind this conspiracy and would welcome a police investigation by the cyber-crime unit so that the culprit can be charged and prosecuted.”
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