Barbados might jail residents for on-line posts inflicting ‘misery’

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Submit Contributor Monday, November 18, 2024

People visit a pier during a high tide after the passage of Hurricane Beryl in Oistins near Bridgetown, Barbados, on July 1, 2024. Hurricane Beryl brought devastating winds and heavy rain to several Caribbean islands on July 1, 2024, as the earliest-ever Category 4 storm churned westward. — Individuals go to a pier throughout a excessive tide after the passage of Hurricane Beryl in Oistins close to Bridgetown, Barbados, on July 1, 2024. Hurricane Beryl introduced devastating winds and heavy rain to a number of Caribbean islands on July 1, 2024, because the earliest-ever Class 4 storm churned westward. | CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP by way of Getty Photos

A proposed regulation being debated within the Caribbean island of Barbados threatens residents with as much as seven years in jail for inflicting “emotional misery” via on-line posts, resulting in public protests and accusations of silencing free speech.

The Cybercrime Invoice seeks to criminalize a variety of actions underneath the guise of “cybersecurity,” together with publishing, broadcasting or transmitting knowledge that’s “offensive” or which could topic somebody to “ridicule, contempt, or embarrassment,” warns the authorized advocacy group ADF Worldwide.

The invoice, which was handed by the Home of Meeting in June, is at the moment underneath overview within the Senate. ADF Worldwide argues that the proposed laws violates worldwide human rights protections without cost speech, together with the American Conference on Human Rights.

The factors for offenses are imprecise, starting from inflicting “annoyance” or “inconvenience” to inducing “nervousness” or “substantial emotional misery,” the group stated.

In keeping with the invoice’s textual content, violators might resist 70,000 BBD in fines (round $35,000) and 7 years in jail. The Joint Choose Committee, which was supposed to enhance the invoice after widespread public concern, as a substitute really helpful harsher penalties, suggesting sentences of as much as 10 years and fines of 100,000 BBD (about $50,000).

Talking earlier than the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights in Washington, D.C., Donald Leacock, a social media influencer and citizen of Barbados, known as the invoice “draconian.”

“Freedom of expression is blatantly being stripped from us on this draconian cybercrime invoice that the federal government of Barbados is forcing onto the residents,” Leacock stated, including that Part 20 of the invoice might result in jail phrases of as much as 10 years for merely posting one thing that may very well be interpreted as inflicting “nervousness or emotional misery.”

“Ought to our residents be thrown in jail for a decade merely for posting one thing on-line that the political elite can declare makes them ‘anxious’ or ’emotionally distressed?'” Leacock requested. “The regulation’s intentionally imprecise language leaves it open to interpretation, and subsequently, abuse. … The federal government goals to intimidate us into compelled silence.”

Julio Pohl, authorized counsel for ADF Worldwide, criticized the try and criminalize on-line content material, stating, “Any regulation that seeks to criminalize on-line content material that’s subjectively deemed annoying, embarrassing, or anxiety-inducing is absurd in a free society.”

Pohl contends the Barbados authorities ought to give attention to defending residents from actual cyber threats, corresponding to hacking and incitement to violence, moderately than regulating on-line speech to spare people from “annoyance.”