TTPS defends arrest of Alyssa Phillip during Labour Day procession

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has de­fend­ed its de­ci­sion to ar­rest so­cial ac­tivist Alyssa Phillip dur­ing the Labour Day pro­ces­sion in Fyz­abad, say­ing she was charged af­ter al­leged­ly lead­ing an unau­tho­rised march and fail­ing to com­ply with po­lice in­struc­tions to dis­perse.

Phillip was charged with be­ing the leader of a march and fail­ing to call on the march to dis­perse, dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour, and re­sist­ing ar­rest.

An­oth­er in­di­vid­ual, Camille Cares­quero, who po­lice iden­ti­fied as a par­tic­i­pant in the pro­ces­sion, was al­so charged with be­ing present at a march and fail­ing to dis­perse, ob­struct­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, and re­sist­ing ar­rest.

In a me­dia re­lease on Sat­ur­day, the TTPS said the Trade Union Move­ment had ob­tained the re­quired per­mis­sion to hold its an­nu­al Labour Day street pro­ces­sion un­der the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, Chap. 11:02.

The po­lice said a so­cial ac­tivist and a small group of fol­low­ers, who were not mem­bers of the Trade Union Move­ment, at­tempt­ed to join the au­tho­rised pro­ces­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, of­fi­cers ver­i­fied with or­gan­is­ers that the group was not part of the per­mit­ted pro­ces­sion and in­formed Phillip that their par­tic­i­pa­tion would amount to a sep­a­rate pub­lic march, which re­quired its own per­mit.

The TTPS said de­spite be­ing in­formed, the group pro­ceed­ed to form and par­tic­i­pate in an unau­tho­rised pro­ces­sion at the rear of the law­ful march.

The po­lice cit­ed pro­vi­sions of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, in­clud­ing Sec­tion 116, which al­lows an of­fi­cer to re­quire the leader of an un­law­ful march to call for it to dis­perse.

The TTPS said Phillip re­fused to call on the group to dis­perse, re­sult­ing in of­fi­cers tak­ing ac­tion.

The ser­vice al­so re­ferred to a re­cent High Court judg­ment in Walk­er v At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, CV2023-00302, which it said clar­i­fied the dif­fer­ence be­tween pub­lic meet­ings and pub­lic march­es.

The TTPS said the judg­ment con­firmed that while pub­lic meet­ings re­quire no­tice, pub­lic march­es re­quire per­mis­sion from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice be­fore they can law­ful­ly take place.

The po­lice said any group wish­ing to par­tic­i­pate in a pub­lic march must ob­tain a per­mit and that at­tach­ing an unau­tho­rised pro­ces­sion to a law­ful one breach­es the law.

The TTPS said of­fi­cers act­ed to pro­tect pub­lic or­der, pub­lic safe­ty, and the in­tegri­ty of the Labour Day event.

“The TTPS re­spects the rights of all cit­i­zens to as­sem­ble and ex­press their views. How­ev­er, these rights must be ex­er­cised with­in the frame­work of the law,” the state­ment as­sert­ed. “Of­fi­cers act­ed with re­straint, clar­i­ty, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. It is re­gret­table that en­force­ment be­came nec­es­sary, but the sanc­ti­ty of the Labour Day pro­ces­sion should nev­er be com­pro­mised by per­sons seek­ing to at­tach un­re­lat­ed agen­das to a per­mit­ted na­tion­al event.”