I can only wonder what the Editorial Staff at The Cayman Compass are up to and I am VERY unhappy.

It is a “No No” for another media house to comment on another’s Editorial and very sadly I am having to break that unwritten rule.

Has anyone any idea what it is like being a reporter in a country that really controls the media?

Go to China and In Memoriam Free Speech applies there and the difference from here and there is like chalk from cheese.

Try writing anything like the Editorial last Wednesday in Russia and the subject of Cayman’s Premier’s wrath and David Legge and his wife would never have made it out of here on a jet.

Speaking of which, what was that all about? Protective police custody from whom? It made a good story but the reason why was not given by the Legge’s not even in their own newspaper. I had to find that in The New York Times.

Quote:

“Mr. Legge said he and his wife had been given police protection by the governor of the Cayman Islands from Friday night into Saturday. But the Legges decided to leave for Florida.

‘“We believed he created such an atmosphere that we needed protection,” Mr. Legge said of Mr. McLaughlin in a telephone interview Monday.

“The paper continues to publish. The front page of Monday’s edition of The Cayman Compass bore only a headline: “In Memoriam, Free Speech in the Cayman Islands, June 5, 2015.”’ – see New York Times “Critical of FIFA, Publishers Flee” June 8 2015 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/sports/soccer/critical-of-fifa-publishers-flee.html?_r=1

Oh come on David. I am ashamed of you. Yes I am.

Did anyone actually threaten you? Try to torch your house? Smash windows?

And the damage already done to this PEACE LOVING country already in turmoil over the alleged revelations of our son of the soil Jeffery Webb has been made even worse.

The New York Times article quotes everything that turned my stomach in the now infamous Editorial.

Unfortunately I believe it was your intention.

In many countries where you have now placed us from the “In Memoriam” nonsense would not have given you police protection – you would have been locked up.

I do agree with you when you called for Cayman officials to begin “exhaustive inquiries” to identify all illicit activities that might have occurred in the FIFA scandal. The premier has already said that is going to happen.

It was EXTREMELY unfortunate East End MLA Arden Mclean’s motion moving “no monies be spent out of the people’s money with the [Cayman] Compass for any advertisement from government” was carried.

Whilst I can sympathise with the mood of the members it was WRONG! And certainly that decision has given some weight that FREE SPEECH when it comes to things government doesn’t like can be punished financially. I hope the Premier realises quickly the seriousness of the error and how the outside media can construe it. That decision MUST be reversed. I well remember when I started CITN/Cayman27 I wrote a piece that was aired on the high costs of the Internet here. I compared the costs we were all being charged with the rest of the world that showed we were being charged nearly four times more than the next highest! I said it was scandalous and we were being robbed! The very next day the Internet provider pulled all their advertising and it hurt us very badly. For government to do that is WRONG!!

The N Y Times article finishes with “The paper continues to publish”.

The fact that it is and no one has gone to censor anything in your offices shows what utter and stupid sensational nonsense that “In Memoriam Free speech in the Cayman Islands June 5, 2015” is.

Just for the record, a few years ago I was publicly named in a packed church by the then premier McKeeva Bush who, after seeing me there, stopped his prepared speech on the celebration of Jamaica’s Independence, pointed to me and said, “I want everybody here to know that that Editor of iNews tells lies”.

What did I do? Absolutely nothing. It was not worth my time. I was just pleased someone actually reads my Editorials. They are MY opinions and I am the first to admit I am not always right.

However, I would never write anything that harms this country and makes insinuations that Caymanians have been brought up into a world of corruption they cannot see the difference.

The premier was quite right to denounce it and if the reason you left was because of a Merle Haggard song then perhaps it is best you stay in Florida.

You had my respect, David, and I expect you have forgotten but a very long time ago Joan and I came to your rescue. Don’t make us regret it.

So come on now let’s agree, “Free Speech is NOT “In Memoriam”. I will allow you to believe it might have gone to sleep.

PS Since writing this an article appeared in the UK’s Guardian today (9) under the heading “Serious Fraud Office ‘actively reviewing’ material on US action against Fifa” at: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/09/serious-fraud-office-reviewing-material-us-fifa-indictments

The Cayman Islands is mentioned but this paragraph made me very angry.

“Further confirmation of the SFO’s involvement came as it was reported that the journalists behind the only daily newspaper in the Cayman Islands had fled after being accused of “treason” for commenting on the US indictment, which accused the former Concacaf president Jack Warner and his successor Jeffrey Webb of a string of offences.”

I hope Legge is NOT laughing and applauding.

Now why didn’t the Guardian publish the real reason “the journalists behind the only daily newspaper in the Cayman Islands had fled after being accused of “treason”?