Opposition Senator files police report after death threats on Facebook

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne has lodged a po­lice re­port af­ter re­ceiv­ing on­line death threats.

In a Face­book post on Thurs­day, Browne wrote: “I have made a full re­port to the Po­lice Ser­vice based on on­line death threats made against me and mem­bers of my fam­i­ly in the form of spe­cif­ic com­ments on my Face­book wall. I have been in­volved in the ac­tive pol­i­tics of Trinidad and To­ba­go since 2007 and have nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing like this. I am treat­ing the is­sue very se­ri­ous­ly.”

In a fol­low-up What­sApp mes­sage, Browne said he ex­pects “ro­bust and swift ac­tion” in re­sponse to the threats.

His state­ment comes a day af­ter act­ing For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath stressed that pub­lic of­fi­cials should be pro­tect­ed from such threats. Padarath was speak­ing in re­la­tion to the de­ten­tion of Olive Green-Jack, who is ac­cused of in­cit­ing the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment to tar­get Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar amid ten­sions be­tween the two coun­tries.

The de­ten­tion or­der stat­ed that Green-Jack “made and pub­lished pub­lic posts and/or com­ments on so­cial me­dia ad­dressed to the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment in an at­tempt to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner like­ly to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.” It added that the posts and com­ments in­vit­ed vi­o­lence against Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and mem­bers of the pub­lic, cre­at­ing “an im­mi­nent threat to pub­lic safe­ty.”

Green-Jack, of Sar­gan­gar Trace, Morne Co­co Road, Diego Mar­tin, will re­main in cus­tody at the Women’s Prison un­til Feb­ru­ary 1 next year.

Com­ment­ing on the de­ten­tion, Padarath said that shar­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence or sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion about her where­abouts puts her at tremen­dous risk. He de­scribed Green-Jack’s ar­rest as “long over­due and en­tire­ly jus­ti­fied.”

“Peo­ple must be held ac­count­able for their ac­tions. This goes far be­yond free­dom of ex­pres­sion. It cross­es in­to a dif­fer­ent realm, and it is im­por­tant that an ex­am­ple be set. This is not about sup­press­ing any­one’s right to speak—it’s about pre­vent­ing dan­ger­ous, reck­less be­hav­iour that jeop­ar­dis­es lives,” he said.

Padarath added that such be­hav­iour “ex­pos­es cit­i­zens who are pub­lic of­fi­cials, and it al­so puts their fam­i­lies and loved ones at risk.”

In his Face­book post, Browne in­clud­ed screen­shots of threats from a user named Garvin See­gob­in. One com­ment read: “Any time I see u pub­lic I go walk up to yuh and shoot yuh in yuh head.” An­oth­er stat­ed: “I go­ing a wait out­side Par­lia­ment when I see yuh I go shoot u.” A third read: “I go send men to kill yuh chil­dren.”

The pro­file ap­pears to be fake, with 40 friends, two pho­tos, and no posts. One of the pic­tures was up­loaded on Oc­to­ber 12. An­oth­er pro­file with the same name and sim­i­lar pho­tos has 51 friends and three posts dat­ing be­tween 2017 and 2018.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro for com­ment on Browne’s re­port, but no re­sponse was re­ceived by press time.