Union leaders condemn TTPS protest restrictions

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Sev­er­al trade union lead­ers are con­demn­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s re­cent move to des­ig­nate 15 “no-protest zones” across Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scrib­ing the mea­sure as a dan­ger­ous threat to democ­ra­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms.

Un­der Le­gal No­tice No 40 of 2026, is­sued even as the State of Emer­gency (SoE) con­tin­ues, Gue­var­ro has pro­hib­it­ed pub­lic protests and demon­stra­tions with­in 500 me­tres of sev­er­al key state in­sti­tu­tions and sen­si­tive fa­cil­i­ties.

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 move fol­lows Wednes­day’s protest in Port-of-Spain de­mand­ing trans­paren­cy in the po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo and Ka­ia Sealy.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, T&T Na­tion­al Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art de­scribed the de­vel­op­ment as “one of the most fright­en­ing” mo­ments fac­ing the coun­try.

Stu­art said the right to protest and pub­licly ex­press dis­sat­is­fac­tion with­in the con­fines of the law has long been a fun­da­men­tal de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right pro­tect­ed un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“The re­moval of this right to demon­strate and protest is in­deed a most trou­bling and fright­en­ing sce­nario every cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go must be cog­nizant of,” Stu­art said.

He warned against dis­miss­ing the is­sue as triv­ial, ar­gu­ing that the re­stric­tions strike at the core of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ex­pres­sion and cit­i­zens’ abil­i­ty to hold lead­ers ac­count­able.

Stu­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion had al­ready re­vealed plans to march to Par­lia­ment and the Red House if the up­com­ing mid-year bud­get re­view by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance failed to ad­dress salary in­creas­es for re­gion­al health­care work­ers, nurs­es and mid­wives.

“With this ac­tion be­ing tak­en, ef­fec­tive­ly block­ing that, block­ing work­ers from ex­press­ing dis­sat­is­fac­tion at the seat of democ­ra­cy by the very seat of democ­ra­cy, it re­al­ly goes to the root of our democ­ra­cy,” he said.

Stu­art al­so cau­tioned sup­port­ers of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion against view­ing the is­sue through a par­ti­san lens.

“If in­de­pen­dent right-think­ing cit­i­zens al­low this to hap­pen un­der one gov­ern­ment, we will see an­oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion util­is­ing the same tac­tics go­ing for­ward,” he added.

He fur­ther ar­gued that the con­tin­u­a­tion of the SoE, cou­pled with Le­gal No­tice No 40, cre­ates what he de­scribed as “a fright­en­ing sce­nario” that cit­i­zens across the po­lit­i­cal di­vide should op­pose.

Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette al­so slammed the re­stric­tions as an at­tempt to sup­press de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights.

“On be­half of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre, let me say that we con­demn the ac­tion and see it as an at­tempt to sti­fle democ­ra­cy and the right to protest,” An­nisette said.

He ar­gued that cit­i­zens do not en­gage in demon­stra­tions with­out cause and protests are of­ten dri­ven by le­git­i­mate con­cerns af­fect­ing work­ers and the wider pop­u­la­tion.

An­nisette ques­tioned whether work­ers fac­ing is­sues such as un­paid wages or fi­nan­cial hard­ships would now be de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­er­cise their fun­da­men­tal right to peace­ful protest.

“In a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety, that is some­thing that one has to be ex­ceed­ing­ly care­ful about and ex­ceed­ing­ly con­cerned about,” he said.

He al­so crit­i­cised the ad­di­tion of 15 re­strict­ed ar­eas, de­scrib­ing the move as an over­re­ac­tion to le­git­i­mate pub­lic demon­stra­tions by cit­i­zens.

“I be­lieve that the ac­tion tak­en by the po­lice is un­rea­son­able. It is un­fair. It has no ba­sis in log­ic and com­mon sense,” An­nisette said.

He fur­ther de­scribed the mea­sure as an abuse and mis­use of po­lice au­thor­i­ty and urged cit­i­zens to pay close at­ten­tion to what he views as a trou­bling de­vel­op­ment for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms.

Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ozzy War­wick al­so lament­ed the TTPS’ re­stric­tions.

He said, “The re­stric­tion is in­con­sis­tent with our con­sti­tu­tion­al free­dom of ex­pres­sion and our right to peace­ful protest. Our democ­ra­cy must be pro­tect­ed at all times! As trade unions, we stand firm be­hind our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms which we fought for and won.”

Mean­while, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer con­demned the re­stric­tions, de­scrib­ing them as a se­ri­ous threat to con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion.

In a state­ment, Ogeer said the re­cent pro­nounce­ments by the TTPS re­gard­ing ar­eas deemed “re­strict­ed” from protest should be of grave con­cern to every cit­i­zen, trade union­ist, ac­tivist and de­fend­er of democ­ra­cy.

Ogeer ar­gued that the trade union move­ment was built through protest, demon­stra­tion, as­sem­bly and the courage of or­di­nary cit­i­zens who chal­lenged au­thor­i­ty in pur­suit of jus­tice, rather than through ne­go­ti­a­tions con­duct­ed be­hind closed doors. She said any at­tempt by the State to de­ter­mine where cit­i­zens may ex­er­cise their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights strikes at the foun­da­tion of free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and free­dom of ex­pres­sion.

“These ac­tions are akin to a po­lice state and a dic­ta­tor­ship,” the CWU head stat­ed.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­por­tance of pub­lic or­der, safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, Ogeer warned that such con­sid­er­a­tions must not be­come a shield be­hind which gov­ern­ments and state agen­cies si­lence dis­sent or place un­rea­son­able bar­ri­ers in the path of cit­i­zens seek­ing to make their voic­es heard.

“The right to protest is not a priv­i­lege grant­ed by the State. It is a con­sti­tu­tion­al free­dom that be­longs to the peo­ple,” Ogeer said.

She added, “A democ­ra­cy that fears peace­ful protest is a democ­ra­cy that has lost con­fi­dence in its abil­i­ty to an­swer le­git­i­mate ques­tions.”

The union boss al­so warned against any at­tempt to cre­ate the per­cep­tion that crit­i­cism would be con­fined, dis­sent man­aged and ac­tivism tol­er­at­ed on­ly when con­ve­nient to those in au­thor­i­ty.

“Free­dom can­not be con­fined be­hind bar­ri­cades, nor can democ­ra­cy flour­ish where cit­i­zens are made to feel that ex­er­cis­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights is an act re­quir­ing per­mis­sion rather than a right de­serv­ing pro­tec­tion,” Ogeer said.

The union boss urged Gov­ern­ment to recog­nise that crit­i­cism is not sedi­tion but rather a le­git­i­mate call by cit­i­zens for trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Guardian Me­dia is still await­ing a re­sponse from the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion and the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union on the lat­est ac­tion by the TTPS.