Attorney says action over separate post was lawful exercise of professional duties on President Ali’s behalf
Attorney-at-law Selwyn Pieters has firmly rejected claims by Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed linking him to the deactivation of the “Team Mohamed” Facebook page, challenging Mohamed to produce evidence while pointing to what he described as a series of shifting explanations surrounding the page’s temporary disappearance.
Pieters said Tuesday that he had no role, directly or indirectly, in the deactivation of the page and described any assertion to the contrary as false.
“Any assertion by Mr Mohamed that I caused, requested or was otherwise responsible for the deactivation of that page is false. No evidence has been produced to support such a claim, and I challenge Mr Mohamed to make public any evidence upon which he relies,” Pieters said.
Pieters said Mohamed has offered several different explanations for the page becoming temporarily unavailable before eventually seeking to place responsibility on him.
According to Pieters, Mohamed initially alleged that the Guyana Police Force was responsible after he was detained in relation to allegations concerning the operation of an unlicensed fast boat and the absence of a valid captain’s licence.
Pieters said Mohamed subsequently blamed the People’s Progressive Party before later stating that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, had taken action against the page over alleged copyright infringement.
He said the latest attempt to link him to the page’s deactivation should therefore be supported by evidence rather than allegation.
Pieters also pointed to Mohamed’s own statement that his attorneys had engaged Meta and that the page was subsequently restored. He said Mohamed’s legal representatives should therefore be able to produce any correspondence from Meta explaining why the page was initially deactivated or suspended.
Pieters called for that correspondence to be made public, saying it would allow the facts to speak for themselves.
The attorney also addressed what he described as a separate matter that should not be conflated with the earlier deactivation of the Team Mohamed page.
Pieters confirmed that he took professional action over a specific Oct. 3 social media publication by Mohamed concerning a Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit operation and referring to President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali.
Pieters, who is authorised to represent the president in relation to social media matters, said he independently assessed the publication and concluded, in his professional judgment, that its contents were defamatory and went beyond the bounds of legitimate political criticism or public commentary.
Rather than immediately pursuing further action, Pieters said he first sought to have the matter resolved directly.
At approximately 5:50 p.m. on Oct. 3, Pieters contacted Mohamed and requested that the publication be removed. Mohamed referred him to his attorney, Siand Durjohn.
Pieters said he subsequently spoke with Durjohn at approximately 6:45 p.m. and formally communicated his position that the publication should be removed, failing which he would pursue the appropriate remedies available to his client.
Durjohn indicated that he would raise the matter with Mohamed but could not guarantee that the request would be honoured, Pieters said.
The publication remained online.
Only after providing notice and an opportunity for the matter to be resolved did Pieters submit the specific publication to Meta for consideration under the company’s applicable processes and policies.
Pieters stressed that any decision on what action to take rested with Meta.
“Meta independently considered the submission and took whatever action it deemed appropriate based on its own assessment. I did not determine Meta’s decision, nor did I have the power to do so,” Pieters said.
Pieters maintained that submitting a complaint about a specific publication he considered defamatory was entirely separate from the earlier deactivation of Mohamed’s Facebook page.
He also rejected any suggestion that his intervention was political or undertaken at the direction of the PPP, saying his actions were carried out solely in his professional capacity as an attorney representing a client whose legal interests he believed had been infringed.
“My actions were not political, nor were they undertaken at the direction of a political party,” Pieters said. “They were taken in my professional capacity as an attorney, based on my assessment of the publication and the authority granted to me to protect my client’s legal interests.”
Pieters also affirmed the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of the press but said those protections do not place anyone beyond the ordinary application of the law, including the law relating to defamation.
“Where I determine, in the proper exercise of my professional judgement, that my client’s legal rights have been infringed, I am entitled and professionally obligated to pursue the lawful remedies available to him,” Pieters said.