Guyana Lawyer Flags Opposition Post to Meta
Politics: Guyana
Key Facts
—Who. Selwyn Pieters, a Canada-based lawyer who represents President Irfaan Ali on social media matters, and opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed.
—What. Pieters confirmed he reported a Mohamed Facebook post to Meta as defamatory; Mohamed says three of his pages are offline and calls it censorship.
—Where. Georgetown, Guyana, a South American country whose economy is driven by offshore oil.
—When. Pieters’ statement came on Tuesday 6 October 2026. The post concerned a customs raid on Saturday 3 October.
—Status. Disputed. Pieters says Meta decided independently; Meta has not explained the removals.
—As of. 7 October 2026, 23:00 GMT.
Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has a lawyer who says he reported a Facebook post by opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed to Meta as defamatory. Mohamed says three Facebook pages tied to him are now offline and calls this censorship.
What We Know
Selwyn Pieters, a Canada-based attorney who represents Ali on social media matters, confirmed the report in a statement on Tuesday 6 October, Demerara Waves reported. He said Meta, the US company that owns Facebook, took whatever action it judged appropriate, and that he neither decided nor had the power to decide that outcome.
Mohamed, Guyana’s Leader of the Opposition, says three pages tied to him are down, Kaieteur News reported. They are Team Mohamed’s with about 540,000 followers, We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) with about 40,000, and Azruddin Mohamed, Leader of the Opposition, with about 59,000.
The Post About a Customs Raid
The post concerned a raid on Saturday 3 October by the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), Guyana’s anti-drug agency, at a house in Windsor Estates, East Bank Demerara. CANU said it found a quantity of uncustomed alcohol and no narcotics, and three people were arrested, Kiskadee Watch reported.
One of the three told officers he rents the house from businessman Ernesto Choo-a-Fat, and CANU said Choo-a-Fat was neither the subject of the operation nor of any ongoing investigation. Mohamed’s post said CANU had raided Choo-a-Fat’s property, according to Kiskadee Watch.
Choo-a-Fat’s lawyer, Sase Gunraj, called the post false, malicious and defamatory and said the house had been rented for more than three years and is not in Choo-a-Fat’s possession or control. He said his firm was instructed to start legal proceedings against Mohamed.
Mohamed told Kiskadee Watch that CANU had confirmed details in his post, including that the property belongs to Choo-a-Fat and that contraband was found. He called the post honest and sincere and described the threatened lawsuit as an attempt to silence him.
How the President’s Lawyer Describes His Steps
Pieters says he judged the post defamatory and beyond legitimate political criticism,. The post stayed online, Pieters says, so he used his authority as counsel for the President and submitted it to Meta under its normal processes.
Mohamed says Pieters warned that Mohamed could not complain of victimisation if Pieters was forced to have Meta suspend his page. Asked by Kaieteur News whether that was his warning, Pieters answered, “Yes, yes.”
Three Pages Offline, Not for the First Time
Mohamed’s lawyer said on 4 September that the Team Mohamed’s page had been deleted while police still held Mohamed’s phones, Winn Media reported. Mohamed later said Meta had deactivated it after trademark complaints and that it returned after his US lawyers made a formal request, Demerara Waves reported.
Mohamed holds the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) fully responsible for the closure. Pieters denies any role, direct or indirect, in the September deactivation and has challenged Mohamed to publish evidence for his claims.
Who Azruddin Mohamed Is
Mohamed formed WIN months before the September 2025 general election, in which it came second, and The Rio Times has covered his September detention. WIN holds 16 of the 29 opposition seats in the 65-seat National Assembly, and Mohamed was elected Leader of the Opposition on 26 January 2026.
In June 2024 the US Treasury sanctioned Mohamed, his father Nazar and their company Mohamed’s Enterprise for alleged corruption, News Room Guyana reported. Treasury alleged the company left more than 10,000 kilograms of gold off its declarations between 2019 and 2023 and avoided more than US$50 million in duty owed to Guyana.
A US federal grand jury in Miami later indicted both men, and the 11-count indictment alleges wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy linked to Guyanese gold exports. These are allegations, and neither man has been convicted.
The Caribbean Court of Justice, Guyana’s final court of appeal, dismissed the Mohameds’ appeal over the extradition process on 29 July, according to the court’s media release. A constitutional appeal is due on Tuesday 13 October, and the extradition hearing before Chief Magistrate Judy Latchman resumes on Wednesday 21 October, INews Guyana reported.
What Is Not Known
Meta has not publicly explained why any of the three pages went offline. It is not known who, if anyone, complained about the other two pages, since Pieters says he reported one post only.
It is also unclear whether Choo-a-Fat’s lawyers have filed a defamation suit against Mohamed. No court has ruled on whether the post was defamatory, and no public evidence links the page removals to the President.
What It Means for US Readers and Investors
Meta is a US company, so this dispute shows how American platforms handle political speech in a small democracy abroad. We found no public comment from Meta on the pages in the coverage we reviewed.
Washington is part of the wider story, because the US Treasury sanctions and the Miami indictment frame Mohamed’s extradition fight. Sanctions on Mohamed’s Enterprise bar US persons from doing business with it.
Guyana matters to US investors because ExxonMobil operates the Stabroek Block offshore, and it said in September 2025 that it expected output to exceed 900,000 barrels a day by year-end. We found no link between this dispute and oil contracts or operations, but US readers can follow our coverage of the US-China contest over Guyana.
More: Guyana and Guianas news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Azruddin Mohamed?
He is Guyana’s Leader of the Opposition and head of We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), which came second in the 2025 election. He is under US sanctions and faces an extradition hearing on an 11-count US indictment, and the charges are allegations.
Did the President’s lawyer get the pages removed?
Selwyn Pieters says he reported one post to Meta as defamatory, and that Meta made its own decision. Meta has not publicly explained why any of the three pages went offline.
What was the post about?
It concerned a 3 October customs raid on a house rented from businessman Ernesto Choo-a-Fat. The customs anti-drug unit said Choo-a-Fat was not the subject of the operation or of any investigation.
Are Mohamed’s Facebook pages back online?
Mohamed says three of his pages are down. Until then he is using a smaller page with about 14,000 followers.
Sources
Demerara Waves (6 Oct) · Kaieteur News · WIC News · Kiskadee Watch · Demerara Waves (3 Oct) · Winn Media · Demerara Waves (25 Sep) · HGPTV · Caribbean National Weekly · News Room Guyana · INews Guyana · Caribbean Court of Justice · ExxonMobil
Connected Coverage
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief