Kartel case acid test of free speech

VYBZ Kartel’s latest song is, ironically, about love. The track, released May 14, is called, They’re Outta Love, We Aren’t. In it, he croons to a partner: “You brighten my life.”

But if you listen to government officials speak about this Jamaican reggae artiste, you’d not get a hint of that. They are fully out of love with him.

“The protection of children must be paramount,” Minister of Defence Wayne Sturge said at the May 15 Cabinet briefing as he justified restrictions planned for a May 31 concert.

In an undated media release that circulated this week, he detailed that a decision had been taken to bar Mr Kartel from performing a specific song, Good Like Jesus, offensive to Christians; to curtail a host of community engagements involving schools; and to seek advice about limiting concert attendance to adults.

Mr Kartel himself diplomatically resiled from planned public appearances in a social media post on May 16. And it seems clear that the specific song cited potentially crosses the line into bad taste and can be regarded as provocative.

This month, Guyana’s Ethnic Relations Commission condemned the song as “blasphemous and deeply offensive.” It is just the surface of a history of more problematic lyrics. He is aiming to grace the stage and leave it at that.

But added to the mix, as if as an afterthought, by the defence minister was a much stronger objection: he cited unspecified intelligence related to the recent murder of a record executive in Tortola and “artist affiliations.”

All of this should concern citizens.

The Kartel case is an acid test on the limits of free speech and human rights. We call for caution, not overkill.

“What we must not do is give the impression we are giving legitimacy to someone who only recently was released from death row for murder, and whose conviction was not overturned on the merits,” said Mr Sturge, a lawyer well-versed in the presumption of innocence.

Asked about Kartel claiming he was reformed (another recent song is titled God Is The Greatest), Sturge replied, “Well, I don’t expect him to say he is not.”

Very true, but these are still dangerous matters for a state to be litigating. A more clear-cut basis might be national security considerations.

“There is no absolute freedom,” correctly noted the Prime Minister on Thursday. “It is a balancing.”

However, that balancing must involve the state acting rationally, proportionately and with restraint.

It should avoid the appearance of extraordinary powers being invoked based primarily on a dislike of lyrics, personalities or speculation about who will be angered.

For, freedom of speech means the freedom even to offend. Otherwise, politicians, too, must watch their words.