September 16, 2005 - The banning of Trinidad and Tobago's CNC3 is a disturbingly reckless and irresponsible act by a public authority. We may well soon find it was also an illegal intervention.

Clearly, the Telecommunications Authority views its role in measures of prohibition and restraint and not as a facilitative mechanism to promote growth in the sector.

Additionally, those who had sat on the fence on the issue of the proposed Broadcast Code should now be left with no doubt that the free press can indeed be subject to arbitrary and discriminatory official behaviour.

Hopefully, the courts will recognise the discrepancy between the regulatory discretion the Telecommunications Authority believes it has and the constitutional right to a free press.

In an environment in which the state is soon due to resume its role as a commercial competitor in the media arena, we also need to ask questions about the timing of new threats not only to CNC3 but to other bona fide enterprises that have been operating for some time now.

This is however not only an issue for media enterprises and journalists to engage. People everywhere need to join in condemning this act and demanding that the government and its agents act in support of a free press and not against it.

Wesley Gibbings

President