Lawmakers from St. Vincent and the Grenadines are facing backlash after passing cybercrime legislation this month that critics say could pose a serious threat to press freedom.
The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Cybercrime Bill 2016, which was passed on Aug. 12 but has not yet taken effect, states in its objects and reasons section that it seeks to make cybercrimes and similar misdeeds criminal offences.
But critics say certain provisions in the legislation infringe on press freedom and could have a chilling effect on open discourse.
“In addition to broadening criminal defamation to include online expression, the law also introduces worryingly vague and subjective definitions of cyber-harassment and cyber-bullying, both of which are punishable by imprisonment,” according to a joint statement released last week by 22 press-advocacy groups, including the Association of Caribbean Media Workers and the Vienna-based International Press Institute.
Opposition members in St. Vincent and the Grenadines also spoke against the Cybercrime Bill, calling for its repeal.
According to the Jamaica Observer, opposition member Anesia Baptiste criticised lawmakers for “attempting to sell it as a law which protects children from cyberbullying when rather it will criminalise children for freedom of speech, criminalise the truth, and generally breed a thin-skinned society in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
SVG gov’t
For the St. Vincent government’s part, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves defended the fact that defamation is a criminal offence in his country.
“The offence of criminal defamation is not a fetter on professional, independent journalists; certainly, this has not been the case in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Dr. Gonsalves said last month, according to the Antigua Observer. “But it protects citizens who may be the subject of deliberate defamation by irresponsible men and women of straw who have absolutely no means to satisfy a monetary judgment awarded in a case of civil defamation.”
Dr. Gonsalves also reportedly said in July that many of the provisions in the law that worry press-rights advocates would be amended. But apparently they were not amended to the satisfaction of those groups, as the bill was widely denounced after its passage.
The law still requires the assent of St. Vincent’s governor-general before it goes into effect.
VI law
The Virgin Islands has also seen controversial cybercrime legislation.
In 2014, the House of Assembly passed the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act 2014, which originally contained a provision that punished the publication of data obtained illegally from a “protected computer” with up to 20 years in prison and up to a $1 million fine.
When the legislation was passed, press freedom advocates and media outlets, including this publication, decried it as a threat to free speech.
Former Governor Boyd McCleary, however, did not sign off on the law until legislators revised it to include a clause that allows for the publication of such data if it is in the public interest.
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