TTPS says no approval granted for ‘Walk for Peace’

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says no au­tho­ri­sa­tion has been grant­ed for a pro­posed “Walk for Peace” sched­uled for Port of Spain to­day.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, said the TTPS is aware of a fly­er cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia pro­mot­ing the event, which is sched­uled to be­gin at 3 pm.

In a state­ment, Mar­tin said while the TTPS sup­ports ini­tia­tives aimed at pro­mot­ing peace and re­duc­ing vi­o­lence, pub­lic gath­er­ings, march­es, pro­ces­sions and as­sem­blies re­main sub­ject to le­gal re­quire­ments, se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ments and op­er­a­tional con­sid­er­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the coun­try re­mains un­der a State of Emer­gency.

She said any at­tempt to or­gan­ise or par­tic­i­pate in an unau­tho­rised march along pub­lic road­ways may breach the laws and reg­u­la­tions cur­rent­ly in force.

The TTPS raised con­cerns about the pro­posed as­sem­bly point at Pic­cadil­ly Street, Port of Spain, say­ing the area presents pub­lic safe­ty and traf­fic man­age­ment chal­lenges.

It al­so warned that large, un­co­or­di­nat­ed gath­er­ings could cre­ate risks for par­tic­i­pants, mo­torists, busi­ness­es and the wider pub­lic.

Mar­tin said the TTPS is ad­vis­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­frain from par­tic­i­pat­ing in any unau­tho­rised march or road pro­ces­sion and to com­ply with law­ful in­struc­tions is­sued by po­lice of­fi­cers.

The ad­vi­so­ry comes af­ter the TTPS is­sued a sim­i­lar warn­ing ahead of a planned protest out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions last month, where po­lice re­mind­ed or­gan­is­ers that pub­lic gath­er­ings re­quired ap­proval.

The TTPS said it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and take law­ful ac­tion to main­tain pub­lic or­der, pro­tect life and prop­er­ty, and safe­guard na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.