Alyssa calls for national shutdown in latest justice protest

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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The call for a na­tion­wide shut­down on Fri­day con­tin­ues and ac­cord­ing to so­cial ac­tivist and or­gan­is­er Alyssa Phillip, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for cit­i­zens to let their voic­es be heard in a peace­ful man­ner.

In­di­cat­ing this was the 18th such in­stal­ment in the 19 Bul­lets, 19 Protests Cam­paign, which was launched as she de­mand­ed jus­tice for Joshua Sama­roo and Ka­ia Sealy, Phillip ad­vised, “This is a call for the na­tion of T&T to stay home from work, to close down busi­ness places and to re­al­ly show what grieves you the most with­in our coun­try.”

Dis­tanc­ing her­self from claims that the jus­tice call had tak­en on a po­lit­i­cal face and that her ire was be­ing di­rect­ed at politi­cians, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar, Phillip de­nied this.

She stressed that her call for the na­tion­wide shut­down was about peo­ple tak­ing time out to speak about what had an­gered and up­set them, “Not just in the past year, but in the past 11 years and even years be­fore that.”

Re­fer­ring to the long­stand­ing mat­ter of Akiel Cham­bers and sev­er­al oth­er po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings which re­main un­solved to this day, Phillip con­tin­ued, “For every­body that is stay­ing home, they would say the rea­son I am stay­ing home is be­cause... or I am home be­cause...”

Urg­ing cit­i­zens to stand for the change they want to see, Phillip added, “We can’t just be say­ing we want change and not be will­ing to sac­ri­fice for the change.”

Hop­ing that at least 201 peo­ple will heed the call to re­main home on Fri­day, she ex­plained that this num­ber was based on the es­ti­mat­ed num­ber of sup­port­ers who had turned up to protest out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain on May 24.

“A lot of peo­ple are say­ing that they are frus­trat­ed and they are fed up of the things go­ing on in the coun­try, but when it comes to ac­tu­al­ly act­ing like it or do­ing some­thing, they refuse to do some­thing,” she stat­ed.

Main­tain­ing her in­no­cence that she has nev­er en­gaged in any­thing but peace­ful protests, Phillip said, de­spite the at­tempt by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to ar­rest her and dis­rupt the over­all cam­paign, “The shep­herd is still there.”

“She is still go­ing to be loud. She is still go­ing to be talk­ing about the sit­u­a­tion. She is still go­ing to be say­ing that those of­fi­cers need to be charged and they need to be held ac­count­able.”

Promis­ing, “It doesn’t end here,” she vowed to con­tin­ue the fight in a peace­ful man­ner.

The on­line ad­ver­tise­ment call­ing for the shut­down reads, “On Fri­day, June 5th, 2026, from 9-5pm WE STAY HOME ! We are call­ing on our na­tion of Trinidad AND To­ba­go to stand for every fam­i­ly seek­ing an­swers, every vic­tim de­nied jus­tice, and every cit­i­zen de­mand­ing a safer Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“This is not about one name, one fam­i­ly, or one tragedy. Protest #18 is for every vic­tim, every griev­ing fam­i­ly, and every cit­i­zen who has felt aban­doned by the sys­tems meant to pro­tect them. From Akeil Cham­bers to ba­by An­ge­lo To­bias, and all those in be­tween whose sto­ries nev­er made head­lines or whose cries for jus­tice went unan­swered.”

Al­so en­dors­ing the call for the shut­down was the founder and leader of the First Wave Move­ment, Umar Ab­dul­lah.

He ap­pealed to “Trade unions to lead a to­tal shut­down of the coun­try, a peace­ful but de­ci­sive act of re­sis­tance to pro­tect our sov­er­eign­ty and save our democ­ra­cy.”

In a What­sApp mes­sage, he said, “If the Gov­ern­ment si­lences our voic­es in the streets, then we will si­lence the en­gines of their econ­o­my.

“This is the most im­por­tant protest ac­tion in our na­tion’s his­to­ry. It is a last-ditch at­tempt to pre­serve the very free­doms up­on which trade unions, civ­il or­gan­i­sa­tions, and democ­ra­cy it­self de­pend.”