Human rights concerns grow over PDO detentions

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Hu­man rights ad­vo­cates are warn­ing that the State could face se­ri­ous con­se­quences if a de­tainee held un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) dies in cus­tody dur­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency, as con­cerns grow over the use of ex­tra­or­di­nary de­ten­tion pow­ers.

Busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed has ar­gued that his con­tin­ued de­ten­tion is al­ready af­fect­ing his health.

“The con­di­tions of de­ten­tion have pre­vent­ed him from re­ceiv­ing the long-stand­ing med­ical care which he had been pre­scribed and has been re­ceiv­ing pri­or to de­ten­tion and which he re­quires, with the re­sult that there is a re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty of long-term per­ma­nent dam­age to his health and a re­al risk to his life,” his first ap­pli­ca­tion had stat­ed which ex­plained that Hadeed suf­fers from “se­ri­ous and in some re­spects life-threat­en­ing med­ical con­di­tions” that can­not be ad­e­quate­ly man­aged while he re­mains in cus­tody.

Among his ail­ments are chron­ic ill­ness, a pro­gres­sive neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­der, blood can­cer and a chron­ic bleed­ing dis­or­der, sleep ap­nea and an or­thopaedic in­jury.

On Fri­day, as the Court of Ap­peal stayed his re­lease from de­ten­tion, State at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen said that arrange­ments would be made to fa­cil­i­tate treat­ment by Hadeed’s doc­tors.

But Hadeed’s health had brought in­to sharp fo­cus the sta­tus of oth­er in­mates and the broad­er ap­pli­ca­tion of hu­man rights of peo­ple be­ing held un­der the SOE.

Guardian Me­dia al­so found that while more than 400 peo­ple have been de­tained un­der in­tel­li­gence-based PDOs dur­ing the cur­rent SoE, there is still no com­plete pub­lic record show­ing how many have been charged, how many have been re­leased or whether any pub­licly record­ed con­vic­tions have re­sult­ed from those de­ten­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s own re­view, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 600 PDO no­tices have been pub­lished in the Gazette since T&T en­tered three sep­a­rate States of Emer­gency (SoE) be­gin­ning in De­cem­ber 2024 un­der two dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tions.

Of that sum, Guardian Me­dia count­ed 572 un­der the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion—138 dur­ing the Ju­ly 2025 to Jan­u­ary 2026 SoE and 434 dur­ing the cur­rent SoE.

The fig­ure does not line up with state­ments made by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der in Par­lia­ment in June that 465 PDOs had been ap­proved dur­ing the cur­rent SoE and that of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin, who said that po­lice ex­e­cut­ed 449 PDOs dur­ing an in­ter­view last Fri­day.

A deep­er look at the gazetted PDO no­tices un­der the cur­rent SoE shows 413 males and 21 fe­males from com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try, with the high­est num­bers com­ing from Port-of-Spain, Bel­mont, Laven­tille and Pe­nal. Four no­tices linked de­tainees from Sig­nal Hill, To­ba­go.

At least 349 peo­ple are de­tained in cen­tres and pris­ons over al­le­ga­tions of vi­o­lence or threats of vi­o­lence in the cur­rent SoE. The or­ders di­rect­ed that 296 of these de­tainees be kept at East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, 23 at Re­mand Prison, 15 at the Women’s Prison, 13 at the Youth Train­ing and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre and two at Teteron Bar­racks.

Protest-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty was the least com­mon al­le­ga­tion. Just six peo­ple were de­tained.

The ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers un­der the SoE al­low the State to de­tain peo­ple with­out lay­ing crim­i­nal charges, re­ly­ing in­stead on in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ing they pose a threat to pub­lic safe­ty or na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Gazette no­tices showed that a large num­ber of de­tainees were ac­cused of in­volve­ment in gangs or or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. Hun­dreds of the or­ders al­so al­leged in­volve­ment with firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, vi­o­lence or threats of vi­o­lence. Many con­tained sev­er­al al­le­ga­tions against the same per­son.

Guardian Me­dia could not find any pub­licly avail­able data­base track­ing what be­came of every de­tainee af­ter a PDO was ex­e­cut­ed.

While po­lice an­nounced charges in some cas­es and pub­licly re­port­ed the re­lease of oth­ers, no com­plete break­down has been pub­lished show­ing the fi­nal out­come for every per­son de­tained.

That lack of in­for­ma­tion has be­come one of the main con­cerns raised by hu­man-rights ad­vo­cates, lawyers and rel­a­tives of de­tainees.

For­mer head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion, Denise Pitch­er, said con­cerns be­gin the mo­ment a SoE is de­clared be­cause ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers au­to­mat­i­cal­ly af­fect fun­da­men­tal rights.

“So right away, that’s a hu­man rights is­sue,” she said.

She said PDOs go even fur­ther be­cause peo­ple are de­tained on sus­pi­cion rather than on ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed be­fore a court.

“The rule of law dic­tates that a per­son must be charged for an of­fence for pro­longed de­ten­tion,” she said.

“If the fi­nal de­ci­sion rests with the ex­ec­u­tive, there are no checks and bal­ances,” she said, re­fer­ring to the re­view tri­bunal process, un­der which the min­is­ter may re­ject rec­om­men­da­tions for a de­tainee’s re­lease.

She al­so ques­tioned the lack of pub­licly avail­able in­for­ma­tion about what hap­pened af­ter hun­dreds of peo­ple were de­tained.

“It’s the right of the pub­lic to have this in­for­ma­tion,” she said.

One of the biggest con­cerns raised by hu­man-rights ad­vo­cates and lawyers is what hap­pens when peo­ple be­come se­ri­ous­ly ill while be­ing held with­out charge.

Gang or or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty — 399 men­tions

Firearms or am­mu­ni­tion — 385 men­tions

Vi­o­lence or threats — 349 men­tions

Rob­bery, bur­glary or home in­va­sion — 228 men­tions

Drug ac­tiv­i­ty — 205 men­tions

Mur­der or at­tempt­ed mur­der — 137 men­tions

Ex­tor­tion, kid­nap­ping or traf­fick­ing — 118 men­tions

Prison-linked ac­tiv­i­ty — 28 men­tions

Fi­nan­cial crime or mon­ey laun­der­ing — 23 men­tions

Protest, pub­lic-or­der or ex­pres­sion-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty — 6 men­tions

Sev­er­al de­tainees or their fam­i­lies have pub­licly raised con­cerns about de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health while in cus­tody dur­ing the cur­rent SoE, in­clud­ing Do­minic Hadeed and de­tainee Jo­hann Har­ry.

For Har­ry, a Go­FundMe cam­paign was launched on June 20 by his fam­i­ly to raise mon­ey for le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and spe­cialised med­ical care. The fam­i­ly said Har­ry is be­ing held un­der a 90-day PDO with­out crim­i­nal charges and suf­fers from sick­le cell anaemia. They said he was re­cent­ly hos­pi­talised with acute chest syn­drome and fear his con­di­tion is wors­en­ing in cus­tody. As of last Fri­day, the cam­paign had raised £671 of its £2,000 tar­get from 21 do­na­tions. Har­ry was de­tained for al­leged­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ing hate speech against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, In­do-Trinida­di­ans and Hin­dus, among oth­ers, on so­cial me­dia. The con­tent is con­sid­ered prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.

Pitch­er said the State has a le­gal and moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect every per­son once they are tak­en in­to cus­tody and that even dur­ing a SoE, some rights can­not be sus­pend­ed.

She said the right to health is al­so a fun­da­men­tal right and forms part of the min­i­mum stan­dards for peo­ple held in de­ten­tion.

“God for­bid that some­one dies with­in the cus­tody of the State dur­ing a SoE due to the con­di­tions in places of de­ten­tion. That’s some­thing that should con­cern us.”

Pitch­er said the is­sue al­so draws at­ten­tion to long­stand­ing com­plaints about prison con­di­tions.

“No one, not even an an­i­mal, should be sub­ject­ed to the con­di­tions that ex­ist in the places of de­ten­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She said the coun­try al­so lacks in­de­pen­dent over­sight of de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties.

“We don’t have any mon­i­tor­ing of places of de­ten­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said, adding that there is no in­de­pen­dent body reg­u­lar­ly in­spect­ing con­di­tions or re­port­ing pub­licly on the treat­ment of de­tainees.

For­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, co-founder of the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights, vet­er­an hu­man rights and women’s rights ac­tivist, Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att, said T&T risked dam­ag­ing its de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rep­u­ta­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ing if the treat­ment of PDO de­tainees con­tin­ued.

Ma­habir-Wy­att said, “We don’t seem to be a democ­ra­cy any­more,” ar­gu­ing that the coun­try was mov­ing away from the free­doms it once re­spect­ed. She al­so warned that if a de­tainee died in State cus­tody, “this is de­clar­ing to the world that we vi­o­late the hu­man rights of peo­ple who are born and who are cit­i­zens of this coun­try.”

Those con­cerns were echoed by At­tor­ney and con­sti­tu­tion­al law spe­cial­ist Sub­has Pan­day, who has vis­it­ed clients de­tained un­der PDOs.

He de­scribed con­di­tions at one de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ty as in­hu­mane, claim­ing that de­tainees are kept in ware­hous­es and con­tain­ers with lit­tle ven­ti­la­tion.

He said the light­ing was poor and tem­per­a­tures in­side be­came un­bear­able.

“The day I went, it was about three o’clock…it was so hot, he was just sit­ting there, and beads of per­spi­ra­tion flow­ing on his body.”

Pan­day claimed prison of­fi­cers them­selves com­plained about the con­di­tions.

He ques­tioned whether peo­ple who had not been charged with any of­fence should be kept in those cir­cum­stances.

“They are not con­vict­ed for any­thing. They are not even deemed to be guilty of any­thing.

“If that is so, they are mere­ly de­tainees based up­on some in­tel­li­gence.”

He ar­gued that if the State in­tend­ed to de­tain hun­dreds of peo­ple un­der emer­gency pow­ers, it al­so had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tion.

“If they knew that they were go­ing to have a state of emer­gency, they should have cre­at­ed more space for them.”

Pan­day warned that if a de­tainee died while in State cus­tody, the con­se­quences could be se­ri­ous.

“The State will be li­able.”

Ma­habir-Wy­att, Pitch­er and Pan­day all ques­tioned whether the re­view tri­bunal pro­vides an ef­fec­tive safe­guard.

Un­der the cur­rent sys­tem, de­tainees may ask for their de­ten­tion to be re­viewed by a tri­bunal. How­ev­er, the min­is­ter, in this case the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, is not bound to ac­cept the tri­bunal’s rec­om­men­da­tion.

Pitch­er be­lieves that this weak­ens one of the few pro­tec­tions avail­able to de­tainees.

“If the fi­nal de­ci­sion rests with the ex­ec­u­tive, there are no checks and bal­ances.”

Pan­day was equal­ly crit­i­cal.

“If the min­is­ter re­jects it…the tri­bunal is ba­si­cal­ly in­ef­fec­tive.”

He said many de­tainees may nev­er be able to chal­lenge their de­ten­tion be­cause they sim­ply can­not af­ford le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“Most of the de­tainees are poor peo­ple…They can­not af­ford it.”

The con­cerns raised are not unique to T&T.

Ja­maica al­so faced crit­i­cism af­ter us­ing emer­gency pow­ers to de­tain thou­sands of peo­ple. Courts there lat­er ex­am­ined cas­es in­volv­ing pro­longed de­ten­tion with­out charge. Bar­ba­dos al­so re­quired reg­u­lar re­port­ing to Par­lia­ment on emer­gency de­ten­tions.

Ja­maica de­tained 2,729 peo­ple dur­ing the 2018 SoE in St James, while Be­lize de­tained near­ly 100 peo­ple dur­ing its 2024 gang-re­lat­ed emer­gency and about 126 peo­ple dur­ing an­oth­er emer­gency in May 2026.

Pitch­er said trans­paren­cy is es­sen­tial when­ev­er gov­ern­ments ex­er­cise ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers.

“The State is ac­count­able to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Last month, dur­ing the de­bate on the Gov­ern­ment’s move to ex­tend the SoE, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der told the Par­lia­ment there were 7,174 po­lice-led op­er­a­tions; 3,211 peo­ple ar­rest­ed; 698 per­sons charged (as of Wednes­day, June 12); 465 PDOs ap­proved; and 184 firearms re­moved from the na­tion’s streets.

The min­is­ter al­so de­fend­ed the use of PDOs dur­ing the SoE.

“That or­der is an ex­ec­u­tive or ad­min­is­tra­tive di­rec­tive that au­tho­ris­es the ar­rest, the con­fine­ment of an in­di­vid­ual with­out a for­mal tri­al or con­vic­tion based on a be­lief that a per­son would be de­tained, or de­tain­ing that per­son is nec­es­sary to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty or to pre­vent an im­mi­nent crime.

“So, it’s not like every time you’re go­ing to get charged. One of the du­ties of a po­lice of­fi­cer is to pre­vent crime, and that is ex­act­ly what is hap­pen­ing here. You’re pre­vent­ing some­thing from hap­pen­ing be­fore it hap­pens.”

Alexan­der al­so said that 698 peo­ple have been charged un­der re­cent pre­vi­ous SoEs.

A to­tal of 40 PDOs were ap­proved and ex­e­cut­ed by the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty for the SoE be­tween March 3, 2026, and late May 2026.

Be­fore that, 117 de­tainees were re­leased from the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre when the SoE, de­clared on Ju­ly 18, 2025, end­ed on Jan­u­ary 31, 2026. Po­lice re­port­ed that while 151 PDOs were ex­e­cut­ed dur­ing this spe­cif­ic SoE, the re­vo­ca­tion of the or­ders trig­gered the mass re­lease of those held. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 peo­ple who were held were charged. The ex­act fig­ure has var­ied.

T&T re­mains a par­ty to six ma­jor Unit­ed Na­tions hu­man rights agree­ments dur­ing the cur­rent SoE.

The agree­ments are the In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights, joined in 1978; the In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Eco­nom­ic, So­cial and Cul­tur­al Rights, al­so joined in 1978; the Con­ven­tion against Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion, joined in 1973; the Con­ven­tion against Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Women, joined in 1990; the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child, joined in 1991; and the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties, joined in 2015.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights con­tains pro­tec­tions re­lat­ed to ar­rest, de­ten­tion, ac­cess to the courts and crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings.

On April 10, 2026, T&T’s Per­ma­nent Mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions in­formed the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al that the Gov­ern­ment was tem­porar­i­ly lim­it­ing spe­cif­ic parts of Ar­ti­cle 9 and Ar­ti­cle 14 of the agree­ment.

The in­for­ma­tion is con­tained in the UN De­posi­tary No­ti­fi­ca­tion la­belled C.N.145.2026 on­line.

The Gov­ern­ment said the SoE, which took ef­fect on March 3, 2026, re­quired the tem­po­rary mea­sures.

Ar­ti­cle 9 deals with ar­rest and de­ten­tion. It in­cludes pro­tec­tion against ar­bi­trary de­ten­tion, the right to be brought be­fore a judge and the right to chal­lenge de­ten­tion.

Ar­ti­cle 14 deals with court pro­ceed­ings and the rights of peo­ple fac­ing crim­i­nal charges.

The no­ti­fi­ca­tion did not re­move T&T from the agree­ment. The coun­try re­mains bound by the oth­er parts of the treaty.

Un­der the agree­ment, emer­gency mea­sures must be con­nect­ed to the emer­gency and what the sit­u­a­tion re­quires.

The UN Hu­man Rights Com­mit­tee has said that some pro­tec­tions, in­clud­ing the ban on tor­ture and cru­el treat­ment, can­not be sus­pend­ed dur­ing an emer­gency.

Peo­ple who be­lieve their rights were breached can chal­lenge their de­ten­tion in the lo­cal courts. They may seek re­lease, med­ical treat­ment or com­pen­sa­tion, de­pend­ing on the cir­cum­stances.

Com­plaints may al­so be sub­mit­ted to the UN Work­ing Group on Ar­bi­trary De­ten­tion or the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights.

These bod­ies can ex­am­ine com­plaints, pub­lish find­ings and rec­om­mend re­lease, com­pen­sa­tion or changes to laws and pro­ce­dures.