PNM warns government against silencing critics

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is warn­ing that it will not al­low the gov­ern­ment to threat­en and muz­zle voic­es that speak out against its con­duct.

“To­day, they are now at­tack­ing the on­line com­men­ta­tors and blog­gers. To­mor­row, it is go­ing to be the jour­nal­ists and the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans,” PNM Chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les said at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day.

Gon­za­les was re­spond­ing to me­dia re­ports that Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der is seek­ing as­sis­tance from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy to take ac­tion against US-based so­cial me­dia fig­ures, some of whom hold dual cit­i­zen­ship, who he says are tar­get­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go by spread­ing pro­pa­gan­da and fear.

Alexan­der called on the Unit­ed States to sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ef­forts to use im­mi­gra­tion mea­sures, in­clud­ing visa re­vo­ca­tion, against non-res­i­dent in­di­vid­u­als who re­peat­ed­ly spread desta­bil­is­ing con­tent and en­dan­ger the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty forces.

Gon­za­les, a for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter said, “So when I heard the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty is say­ing that he plans to go to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to in­tro­duce laws to reg­u­late so­cial me­dia com­men­ta­tors and blog­gers, it tells you the di­rec­tion that this gov­ern­ment plans to go, the ex­tent to which they plan to go to sup­press the ex­pres­sion of free voic­es in this coun­try.”

Most re­cent­ly, a Diego Mar­tin woman ac­cused of en­cour­ag­ing vi­o­lence against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was placed un­der pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der. The de­ten­tion or­der for Olive Green-Jack of Morne Co­co Road was signed on No­vem­ber 12 and pub­lished in the Gazette on Thurs­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the or­der, Green-Jack was de­tained over so­cial me­dia posts that dis­played an im­age of the Prime Min­is­ter’s home in the Philip­pines and urged the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment to tar­get the res­i­dence.

Mean­while, a Diego Mar­tin man is in po­lice cus­tody, as­sist­ing with in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to on­line death threats against Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne.

While Gon­za­les did not ref­er­ence Green-Jack he said, “Let me say, the PNM is not en­dors­ing any on­line threat against any gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial or any cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go. That is not what we are say­ing.”

He added, “But we op­er­ate in a land­scape where cit­i­zens can ex­press them­selves and par­tic­i­pate in the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process by go­ing on­line and high­light­ing is­sues and mat­ters of gov­er­nance in Trinidad and To­ba­go. And it does not mat­ter whether the prime min­is­ter or the leader of gov­ern­ment busi­ness or the Min­is­ter of De­fence or the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, it does not mat­ter if they are un­com­fort­able with those views be­ing ex­pressed.”

Gon­za­les said the PNM will not stand by and al­low the gov­ern­ment to muz­zle “le­git­i­mate” voic­es of dis­sent.

“And to­day, the op­po­si­tion is send­ing no­tice to the gov­ern­ment that whilst you run away and not ac­count to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and not speak clear­ly to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we will ral­ly all voic­es of rea­son and use what­ev­er mech­a­nism is avail­able to us to ed­u­cate and in­form our cit­i­zens and to hold you to ac­count.”