As SoE nears end, families hope for detainees’ release

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

As the State of Emer­gency (SoE) comes to an end on Jan­u­ary 31, sev­er­al de­tainees who have been held for months un­der de­ten­tion or­ders with­out charge are anx­ious­ly await­ing their free­dom.

For 89 fam­i­lies, the ex­piry of the SoE will mean ei­ther re­lease or for­mal charges.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the wife of a de­tainee, said she re­mains alarmed that her hus­band has been in­car­cer­at­ed for sev­er­al months with­out fac­ing a sin­gle charge. She said he was de­tained af­ter as­sist­ing some­one of ques­tion­able char­ac­ter and that the pro­longed un­cer­tain­ty has tak­en a heavy toll on the fam­i­ly. Ac­cord­ing to her, once the SoE ex­pires, her hus­band will fi­nal­ly learn whether he will be charged or re­leased. His at­tor­ney has ad­vised that if charges are laid, he would be el­i­gi­ble for bail as a first-time of­fend­er.

How­ev­er, while fam­i­lies cling to hope, con­cerns are mount­ing about the pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, which the Gov­ern­ment said was in­tend­ed to com­bat crime. The bill will be brought to Par­lia­ment to­day.

How­ev­er, for­mer Chief Staff Of­fi­cer Op­er­a­tions at the T&T De­fence Force Head­quar­ters, Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al, said the bill would al­low for the de­c­la­ra­tion of Spe­cial Zones where se­cu­ri­ty forces could im­pose cur­fews, con­duct search­es with­out war­rants, and de­tain in­di­vid­u­als with­out due process—pow­ers sim­i­lar to those ex­er­cised un­der a state of emer­gency.

Din­di­al, a re­tired Coast Guard of­fi­cer, strong­ly crit­i­cised the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, warn­ing that it opens the door to con­tin­ued abuse of state pow­er and risks trans­form­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to what he de­scribes as a “po­lice state.”

“There are key con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns and an in­her­ent risk of be­com­ing a po­lice state. The bill’s pro­vi­sions, al­low­ing search with­out war­rant, cur­fews, and de­ten­tion with­out due process, con­tra­vene the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, specif­i­cal­ly Sec­tions 4 and 5, which pro­tect the right to lib­er­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son. Fur­ther­more, grant­i­ng the Prime Min­is­ter, as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, sweep­ing pow­ers to de­clare zones and im­pose re­stric­tions un­der­mines the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy and the rule of law,” Din­di­al said.

He not­ed that the bill’s fo­cus on se­cu­ri­ty force oc­cu­pa­tion and en­force­ment mea­sures (by mere­ly giv­ing a ‘rea­son’) may lead to a po­lice state, “where cit­i­zens are treat­ed as sus­pects rather than cit­i­zens with rights.”

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the po­ten­tial so­cial fall­out of des­ig­nat­ing com­mu­ni­ties as Spe­cial Zones.

“There are al­so the risks of ar­bi­trary la­belling, which come with a pletho­ra of neg­a­tive con­se­quences,” he said.

“La­belling an area a ‘Spe­cial Zone’ can lead to stig­ma­ti­sa­tion, dri­ving crime fur­ther un­der­ground and mak­ing it hard­er to ad­dress.”

Din­di­al ar­gued that the bill could dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ab­sence of clear da­ta ex­plain­ing how such zones would be se­lect­ed or as­sessed. He point­ed to in­ter­na­tion­al ex­am­ples that, he said, should serve as cau­tion­ary tales.

“In the Ja­maican con­text where we want to frame our use of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), there have been ex­am­ples of hu­man rights abus­es and a fail­ure to re­duce crime. Al­so, the US’s ‘stop-and-frisk’ poli­cies have al­so been ruled in­her­ent­ly un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and have led to wide­spread protests,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Din­di­al, the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion re­flects a broad­er fail­ure to learn from past crime-fight­ing strate­gies, in­clud­ing pre­vi­ous states of emer­gency.

“The State of Emer­gency (SOE) pre­vi­ous­ly de­clared by suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions to com­bat crime failed and al­so did not ad­dress the root caus­es of vi­o­lence. More­over, they led to hu­man rights abuse cas­es be­ing filed against the State. De­clar­ing ‘Spe­cial Zones’ can be seen as a re­peat of the same failed ap­proach, pri­ori­tis­ing en­force­ment over ad­dress­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic is­sues,” he said.

He fur­ther warned that the bill’s pro­vi­sions echo colo­nial-era laws that al­lowed au­thor­i­ties to de­tain in­di­vid­u­als with­out due process.

“The bill’s pro­vi­sions evoke mem­o­ries of colo­nial-era laws, where au­thor­i­ties im­posed re­stric­tions and de­tained in­di­vid­u­als with­out due process,” Din­di­al said, adding that grant­i­ng such ex­ten­sive au­thor­i­ty to the Prime Min­is­ter risks un­der­min­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and edg­ing the coun­try to­ward dic­ta­tor­ship.

Din­di­al al­so cau­tioned that the leg­is­la­tion could harm T&T’s re­gion­al rep­u­ta­tion.

“There are al­so im­pli­ca­tions for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­gion­al rep­u­ta­tion and re­la­tion­ships, po­ten­tial­ly un­der­min­ing our com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy and hu­man rights. The Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) and oth­er re­gion­al bod­ies have em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of up­hold­ing hu­man rights and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples in ad­dress­ing se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges,” he added.

Out­lin­ing the bill’s frame­work, Din­di­al ex­plained that it es­tab­lish­es a Joint Com­mand and Joint Force made up of se­nior mem­bers of the De­fence Force and Po­lice Ser­vice. These units would be re­spon­si­ble for law en­force­ment with­in Spe­cial Zones, in­clud­ing set­ting up cor­dons, im­pos­ing cur­fews, con­duct­ing search­es with­out war­rants, seiz­ing prop­er­ty, and de­tain­ing in­di­vid­u­als. Al­though the bill states that de­tainees would re­tain cer­tain rights and that nor­mal crim­i­nal pro­ce­dures should ap­ply, Din­di­al ques­tioned whether the safe­guards are ad­e­quate.

He raised con­cerns about the mil­i­tari­sa­tion of polic­ing, weak over­sight, and the risk of ex­ec­u­tive over­reach, in­clud­ing the po­ten­tial tar­get­ing of po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

“The bill’s pro­vi­sions can be used to tar­get in­di­vid­u­als or groups per­ceived as threats to the Gov­ern­ment. It can lead to a cul­ture of fear, si­lenc­ing dis­sent and op­po­si­tion,” he said.

Din­di­al con­clud­ed that if stan­dard crim­i­nal law pro­ce­dures are meant to be fol­lowed, the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for Spe­cial Zones is un­clear.

“How can you jus­ti­fy the over­reach of ex­ec­u­tive pow­er re­quest­ed by the state? The bill’s pro­vi­sions sug­gest a de­sire to by­pass nor­mal pro­ce­dures and grant ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers to the JF, which can lead to a cul­ture of im­puni­ty and un­der­mine the rule of law,” he said.

He warned that the pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill pos­es se­ri­ous risks to democ­ra­cy, hu­man rights, and the con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The bill’s pro­vi­sions, grant­i­ng sweep­ing pow­ers to the Prime Min­is­ter and law en­force­ment agen­cies, threat­en to cre­ate a po­lice state, un­der­min­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion, rule of law, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples, and cit­i­zens’ rights,” Din­di­al said.