Cudjoe-Lewis warns Hadeed case raises wider questions on citizens’ rights

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis says tax­pay­ers will ul­ti­mate­ly bear the cost of the State’s le­gal de­feat in Thurs­day's mat­ter in­volv­ing Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed, ar­gu­ing that the case goes be­yond the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved and rais­es wider con­cerns about cit­i­zens’ rights and free­doms un­der democ­ra­cy.

“So for you sit­ting in your cor­ner and think­ing this is a mat­ter about the Hadeeds: this is al­so about your tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars and your monies. So this is your busi­ness! So much for our rights and free­doms as it re­lates to liv­ing un­der democ­ra­cy,” said Cud­joe-Lewis.

Speak­ing at the PNM meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House, Cud­joe-Lewis slammed the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty (TPP)-led To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and its Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) part­ner­ship at length.

She said crime is on the rise and the State of Emer­gency (SoE) doesn’t serve or ben­e­fit To­bag­o­ni­ans in any way.

She said the SoE and Emer­gency Pow­ers are not about re­duc­ing crime or pro­mot­ing safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.

"We don’t be­lieve there is any death threat. At least I don’t be­lieve that; just a pack of pet­ty piti­ful UNC jok­ers seek­ing to ful­ly in­tim­i­date cit­i­zens for their own en­ter­tain­ment and to keep the peace af­ter they’ve bro­ken every sin­gle promise."

She said rather than fix­ing T&T and de­liv­er­ing to cit­i­zens, “they have no plan, and they’ve danced with the dev­il so we all now have to set­tle for SoE af­ter SoE while they try to keep the peace.”

Cud­joe-Lewis al­so crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as a lack of pub­lic op­po­si­tion, say­ing trade unions were afraid to speak, gate­keep­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and colum­nists had dis­ap­peared, and many ac­tivists had gone com­plete­ly silent.

She said this can’t be ig­nored: “Since, in essence, they’re say­ing what­ev­er has hap­pened to peo­ple like the Hadeeds can al­so hap­pen to me.”