Farley: Don’t give abusers a platform

Stephon Nicholas

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has con­demned cer­tain me­dia hous­es for giv­ing abu­sive men a plat­form. He made the state­ment on Mon­day night on Mic'd Mat­ters, an on­line THA pro­gramme, as he re­spond­ed to an at­tempt­ed mur­der-sui­cide in Sig­nal Hill and a re­cent vi­ral video show­ing a man as­sault­ing his girl­friend in a car. The al­leged sus­pect in the lat­ter was in­ter­viewed by a ra­dio and tele­vi­sion sta­tion. Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent af­ter the vic­tim filed a re­port.

Au­gus­tine said, "We need to not ex­cuse and give a plat­form to abusers. That is where I hav­ing a prob­lem. I see­ing where we plat­form­ing some abusers, al­low­ing them stage time, video light as the Ja­maicans does say, putting them on prime time — as if they de­serve to be on prime time.

"No, don't give them a plat­form for their non­sense."

Au­gus­tine said he can­not con­done vi­o­lence in re­la­tion­ships as abusers have the op­tion of walk­ing away. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the pain of end­ing a long-term re­la­tion­ship, he said help is avail­able.

"This thing called love and re­la­tion­ship is an in­vest­ment. All in­vest­ments come with risks. Whether the in­vest­ment is in a bank or fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, whether it's in a re­la­tion­ship, it must come with a risk. The risk is it may work or may not work."