CCT SUSPENDS ADVERTISEMENT AMIDST CONTROVERSIAL CARTOON

Caribbean Cellular Telephone (CCT) is a proud local business which is primarily owned, managed and staffed by persons of African descent, and we stand unequivocally with the Black Lives Matter Movement against racial discrimination.

We would like to state for the record, although we do advertise with Virgin Islands News Online, we explicitly condemn the cartoon published on June 15, 2020, that appears to depict a caricature of a white man (presumably Governor Augustus Jasper) kneeling on the neck of a black man (presumably Mr. Claude Skelton-Cline). This tasteless reenactment of the murder of Mr. George Floyd within a local political context is both offensive and inappropriate.

We join the many voices in the British Virgin Islands community who have already spoken out against this offensive cartoon and we demand that Virgin Islands News Online immediately retract this offensive cartoon and issue an official apology.

Furthermore, CCT will suspend all future advertising with Virgin Islands News Online until this offensive cartoon is retracted and we call upon all other advertisers to make a similar pledge. There is simply no place in our beautiful British Virgin Islands community for this kind of callous disrespect of human dignity.