Protesters silenced

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

“TTPS say shh­hh!”

With those words em­bla­zoned on mask­ing tape criss-cross­ing her face mask, protest or­gan­is­er Alyssa Phillip yes­ter­day begged off an­swer­ing ques­tions re­lat­ing to her re­cent ar­rest, af­ter po­lice pre­vent­ed them from stag­ing their lat­est demon­stra­tion di­rect­ly out­side the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre (FSC) in St James.

Hold­ing hands with friends, well-wish­ers and sup­port­ers who were forced to move their lat­est protest to the cor­ner of Bar­ba­dos Road and Long Cir­cu­lar Road, her qui­et and calm de­meanour left many, in­clud­ing the group of uni­formed and plain-clothes of­fi­cers, won­der­ing what would even­tu­al­ly tran­spire.

Adamant that she would not be is­su­ing any pub­lic state­ments, she in­vit­ed me­dia to con­tact her di­rect­ly for in­ter­views.

Say­ing the 19-minute silent protest had achieved its pur­pose, which was to com­mu­ni­cate their dis­plea­sure to au­thor­i­ties over their han­dling of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo and wound­ing of his com­mon-law wife Ka­ia Sealy, Phillip said, “The point of here to­day is to re­main silent and not ad­dress any­thing at all.”

Hold­ing on­to Phillip’s trem­bling hands, her moth­er, Camille Cares­quero, said their pres­ence was to show “we can­not re­main silent.”

“That is what they would like. We gave them what they would like,” Cares­quero said.

“We fol­lowed the in­struc­tions but free­dom of speech has to go on, so this is a silent mes­sage and this is for they to re­al­ly un­der­stand they have to lis­ten to the voic­es on the ground.”

De­spite the small crowd of sup­port­ers who turned out to line the pave­ment along Long Cir­cu­lar Road, op­po­site the Po­lice Mess, Cares­quero said, “The peo­ple wants to speak to them. The peo­ple has some­thing to say and we want that they lis­ten.”

Both Phillip and Cares­quero de­clined to an­swer fur­ther ques­tions be­fore they were hus­tled away.

One se­nior of­fi­cial in­sist­ed yes­ter­day’s show of strength by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was not meant to in­tim­i­date the pro­tes­tors.

“It was meant to en­sure that they ad­here to the rule of law and or­der,” the of­fi­cer said.

Sup­port­ers of Phillip had ear­li­er turned up be­fore the sched­uled 3 pm start time, hop­ing to gath­er out­side the FSC along Bar­ba­dos Road.

How­ev­er, they were sur­prised to find the en­tire road cor­doned off from end to end, with on­ly mo­tor­ing pub­lic and pedes­tri­ans liv­ing along the street per­mit­ted en­try.

A mo­bile bus be­long­ing to the TTPS De­ten­tion Unit, as well as a po­lice wreck­er, were al­so on lo­ca­tion.

Po­lice of­fi­cers warned mo­torists about park­ing in and around the im­me­di­ate area, as they di­rect­ed traf­fic and urged per­sons to be on their way so as to pre­vent any ob­struc­tions which could ham­per the free flow of traf­fic.

Some passers-by and mo­torists ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over the im­promp­tu clo­sure, with some claim­ing it was overkill.

Phillip and her moth­er ar­rived at 4 pm and be­gan the silent protest with an open­ing prayer be­fore they called on all present to hold hands and main­tain 19 min­utes of si­lence—for the 19 bul­lets po­lice al­leged­ly fired at Sama­roo dur­ing the shoot­ing in­ci­dent in Jan­u­ary.

Care­ful not to block the pave­ment, the line of sup­port­ers al­so placed mask­ing tape over their mouths and knelt with clasped hands held aloft for the fi­nal few min­utes.

Not­ing that armed of­fi­cers from spe­cial­ist units, in­clud­ing the Mount­ed Branch; the In­ter-Agency Task Force; the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion Task Force; the Guard and Emer­gency Branch; the In­tel­li­gence and Gang Unit; and the Air Sup­port Unit, were present, the pro­tes­tors in­sist­ed their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were slow­ly be­ing erod­ed by what some called “strong arm tac­tics” by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Curt Si­mon pre­sent­ed a list of 15 state venues, gov­ern­ment min­istries and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies in front of which the pub­lic is now pro­hib­it­ed from gath­er­ing or protest­ing.

How­ev­er, the FSC was not on that sched­ule.

Si­mon did, how­ev­er, in­di­cate that the list may be ex­pand­ed as time goes along, but it re­mained un­clear yes­ter­day if there had been any amend­ments with­in the 24 hours pri­or and, if so, what those of­fices were.

Ac­cord­ing to the amend­ed reg­u­la­tions, per­sons are not al­lowed to gath­er/con­gre­gate with­in 500 me­tres of the list­ed venues.

Al­though Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin and ACP Richard Smith were present yes­ter­day, they de­clined to speak with the me­dia. Of­fi­cials stressed their pres­ence was not meant to in­tim­i­date the pro­tes­tors, but just to en­sure that what hap­pened on Wednes­day, when Phillip and her moth­er were ar­rest­ed and a protest near the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ Of­fice was dis­persed, did not oc­cur again.

One of the pro­test­ers, Jas­son Noel, ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment over the man­ner in which their protest ac­tion was be­ing treat­ed.

“The Gov­ern­ment is sup­posed to be work­ing for the na­tion and if the na­tion is speak­ing out and the Gov­ern­ment don’t want to hear, then that means we is not a na­tion. They are si­lenc­ing we voice, so peo­ple can’t talk and say what on their mind,” he said

Call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­spond to the peo­ple, Noel said, “I find the prime min­is­ter sup­posed to ac­knowl­edge the peo­ple. The same peo­ple who put you in pow­er dey, cause you work­ing for the peo­ple, the peo­ple not work­ing for you...so you have to give the peo­ple and them a hear­ing.”

Noel ques­tioned, “Why you not com­ing out and hold­ing a one-on-one with the peo­ple? You not com­ing out and say­ing noth­ing. You just stay­ing wher­ev­er you is and send­ing out mem­os and what­ev­er...what­ev­er they tell you to say.”

He in­sist­ed, “Right now, the whole na­tion feel­ing op­pressed, it feel­ing de­press­ing right now.”

He too, de­scribed the pres­ence of the po­lice as an in­tim­ida­to­ry act in­tend­ed to spread “fear­mon­ger­ing” among the pro­tes­tors and their sup­port­ers.

Noel said, “All this po­lice here and crime could be go­ing on some­where, re­al crime with guns and rob­bery and all kin­da thing, but all this po­lice pres­ence here. What we come to take? Who we come to rob? We just come to ex­press we views.”

He al­so ac­cused the TTPS of try­ing to pro­voke a re­ac­tion from them.