Attorney Astaphan calls Dr Francis Severin Speech dishonest, shameful, disgraceful and misrepresentative

​Attorney Astaphan calls Dr Francis Severin Speech dishonest, shameful, disgraceful and misrepresentative. Dr Francis Severin was the presenter at the Eleventh Annual Dame Eugenia Charles Memorial Lecture recently. Astaphan also described the lecture as an intellectual fraud.
 
The lecture entitled, “Dem belly full, but we hungry: Insights into autocratic rule,” was a wide-ranging one, touching on numerous topics. Dr. Severin is the Director of Open Campus Country Sites at the UWI Open Campus.
 
He elucidated about the notion and principles of democracy, and said Parliament is an agency of the country’s democracy, belonging to the people and no one else. He said it was backward for anyone, especially the Speaker of any House of Assembly to frustrate elected members.
 
Most in Dominica felt the lecture was very good, but Astaphan did not think so. He savaged Dr Severin during an interview on state owned radio. He felt the lecture was disgraceful, and was delivered by someone who should display intellectual honesty at all times. “I think it was a shameful and a disgraceful speech by somebody who holds a position in society where intellectual honesty must be demanded at all times …”
 
Astaphan said Dr. Severin was pandering “to a political crowd”, and that the lecture was calculated, and was a dishonest, political and intellectual act, “by someone of his standing that I have witnessed in a long time.”
 
He added “So much of it was based on misrepresentation and lies, and on the propaganda of the UWP.  I say all of this without in any way trying to denigrate the person, but the speech from that person, to me, was an intellectual disgrace, a fraud and something that should be condemned.”