OFF LIMITS

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

On the same day ri­ot po­lice shut down the Ka­ia Sealy protest out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro brought in­to force a list of 15 no-protest zones, which in­clud­ed the DPP’s of­fice.

And while the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says protests are still al­lowed un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE), they now say such ac­tiv­i­ty must be peace­ful and not with­in 500 me­tres of what was de­scribed as “sen­si­tive ar­eas.”

In Le­gal No­tice No. 40 of 2026 un­der the or­der, peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in pub­lic protests or demon­stra­tions are pro­hib­it­ed from be­ing at, or with­in 500 me­tres of, sev­er­al key state in­sti­tu­tions and sen­si­tive fa­cil­i­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The re­strict­ed ar­eas in­clude the Par­lia­ment and Par­lia­men­tary Com­plex, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Min­istry of Fi­nance, the Min­istry of De­fence and the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

The or­der al­so cov­ers the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice head­quar­ters and all po­lice sta­tions na­tion­wide, the T&T Prison Ser­vice head­quar­ters and all pris­ons and de­ten­tion cen­tres, as well as the T&T De­fence Force head­quar­ters and all army bases and bar­racks.

Ad­di­tion­al re­strict­ed lo­ca­tions in­clude the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in To­ba­go and the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T.

The le­gal no­tice con­clud­ed with, “Made by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice this 27th day of May, 2026.”

This, how­ev­er, is a de­par­ture from state­ments made by the Prime Min­is­ter over the course of suc­ces­sive SoEs. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has fre­quent­ly told Guardian Me­dia that she has not lim­it­ed free move­ment dur­ing SoEs, even go­ing as far as to say, “Peo­ple are free to mash up and burn down the place if they want.”

The le­gal no­tice was cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia be­fore it was ad­dressed by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Curt Si­mon at a TTPS me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day.

“To main­tain safe­ty, not just for those who are in­volved in the protests, but al­so those who are maybe just passers-by, and even to our own po­lice of­fi­cers, there have been some new reg­u­la­tions com­ing out to add to what al­ready ex­ists as it re­lates to the state of emer­gency,” Si­mon said.

He added, “These places, it does not say that you are not al­lowed to ven­ture in­to these places. It does not say that you are not al­lowed to pass near these places. It is just say­ing that you are not al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate in pub­lic protest demon­stra­tions with­in the cur­tilage of these places. And we give a space of 500 me­tres. And we re­al­ly are im­plor­ing you, the pub­lic, to work with us.”

Guardian Me­dia told Si­mon that the tim­ing of the le­gal no­tice seemed sus­pi­cious and ques­tioned if this was a di­rect at­tempt to stop protest like the one on Wednes­day.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin re­spond­ed, say­ing, “When these de­ci­sions are made, it is made in the best in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go. When we recog­nise that there are key ar­eas, and again you recog­nise that it’s not just one area, even in the reg­u­la­tion and even though it was not stat­ed, you will see that it is key places be­cause you would have the po­lice head­quar­ters and you will have all po­lice sta­tions.”

He added, “You will have the prison and you talk about even in the de­fence force all the bar­racks, etc. So, they looked at all the dif­fer­ent ar­eas where again, po­lice of­fi­cers or law en­force­ment would be.

“We al­so looked at where you know par­lia­men­tary per­sons would be, per­sons of in­ter­est and there­fore it was a holis­tic, I think, ap­pre­ci­a­tion in terms of un­der­stand­ing these are sen­si­tive ar­eas.”

Guardian Me­dia told the DCP that he did not di­rect­ly an­swer the ques­tion and asked if there was an emer­gency meet­ing on Wednes­day that led to the cre­ation of the new reg­u­la­tion. How­ev­er, Ben­jamin would on­ly say the reg­u­la­tions were cre­at­ed be­fore the planned protest.

Ef­forts to con­tact CoP Gue­var­ro to ask him the same ques­tions were un­suc­cess­ful, as he did not re­spond to the mes­sages.

Dur­ing the brief­ing, mem­bers of the me­dia were told there is no law pro­hibit­ing protests but DCP Ben­jamin said it must be done qui­et­ly.

“There should be no chant­i­ng. We are say­ing that even in terms of the words, it must not be in­cit­ing any­thing that would cre­ate that up­heaval and vi­o­lence or even the ac­tions that will cause that sort of a thing. So we are ask­ing per­sons, even in what they are do­ing, to please de­sist, and where we find that these sit­u­a­tions are com­ing or would be re­al­ly get­ting out of hand, that is when the po­lice will take the nec­es­sary ac­tion to en­sure law and or­der at all times with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so brought to the of­fi­cers’’ at­ten­tion that on Wednes­day, there was an­oth­er protest by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­bers at the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion call­ing for the res­ig­na­tion of al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts fol­low­ing his de­fec­tion to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

Asked why po­lice of­fi­cers did not put an end to that demon­stra­tion, DCP Ben­jamin said, “Well, first of all, I am not aware re­al­ly of that par­tic­u­lar protest, all right. Nev­er­the­less, I am say­ing that I think each sit­u­a­tion must be based on its own mer­it. We need to al­so ap­pre­ci­ate the fact that even though per­sons might protest, it is not just what is done but how it is done.”

Lal­la ques­tions protest ban un­der SoE

Se­nior Coun­sel Lar­ry Lal­la says the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’s or­der ban­ning protests near sev­er­al lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing Par­lia­ment, is “not a pro­por­tion­ate ex­er­cise of his pow­er un­der the Emer­gency Reg­u­la­tions.”

Lal­la ar­gued that the SoE was in­tro­duced “to deal with gang vi­o­lence,” adding there ap­pears to be “no le­git­i­mate rea­son to pro­hib­it peace­ful protests,” in­clud­ing “even one-man peace­ful protests.”

He warned that the or­der could in­fringe on con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions, point­ing to “the free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion” and “the free­dom to ex­press po­lit­i­cal views” en­joyed by cit­i­zens.

Lal­la, a mem­ber of the PNM, main­tained that re­strict­ing peace­ful demon­stra­tions in this way rais­es se­ri­ous con­cerns about the bal­ance be­tween emer­gency pow­ers and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights.

A per­son who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a pub­lic protest or demon­stra­tion shall not be at, or with­in five hun­dred me­tres of, the premis­es and cur­tilage of a place spec­i­fied in the Sched­ule.

SCHED­ULE

1. The Par­lia­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Red House, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain and the Par­lia­men­tary Com­plex, Ca­bil­do Build­ing, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.

2. The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Cir­cu­lar Road, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain.

3. The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, 13–15 St Clair Av­enue, Port-of-Spain.

4. The Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, La Fan­tasie Road, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain.

5. The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza, Cor­ner of Lon­don and Rich­mond Streets, Port-of-Spain.

6. The Min­istry of Fi­nance, Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex, In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain.

7. The Min­istry of De­fence, Tem­ple Court 1, 31–33 Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

8. The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Tow­er C, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, 1A Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

9. The Head­quar­ters of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, Cor­ner of Ed­ward and Sackville Streets, Port-of-Spain and all po­lice sta­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

10. The Head­quar­ters of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice, 10–14 Phillips Street, Port-of-Spain and all pris­ons and de­ten­tion cen­tres in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

11. The Head­quar­ters of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, Staubles Bay, Ch­aguara­mas and all army bases and bar­racks.

12. The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Win­sure Build­ing, 24–28 Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain.

13. The Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Pi­ar­co.

14. The A.N.R. Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Crown Point, To­ba­go.

15. The Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Port Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Dock Road, Port-of-Spain.