Mom detained for online post targeting Kamla says she ‘learned her lesson’

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Olive Green-Jack, who was de­tained for 81 days un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE) for her so­cial me­dia post call­ing on Venezuela to at­tack the Prime Min­is­ter at her pri­vate res­i­dence in South Trinidad, says she has learnt her les­son.

“If I had guid­ance, that state­ment would have nev­er made so­cial me­dia,” Green-Jack told the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, at her Pe­tit Val­ley home, short­ly af­ter her re­lease from the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca.

It was her first time that the 44-year-old woman was im­pris­oned.

Up to the time of her re­lease, her three chil­dren had not seen her, as they were at work and out.

Dur­ing the al­most three months Green-Jack spent in jail, her hus­band Cliff Green stood at her side.

She was one of 117 de­tainees un­der the SoE who were re­leased from prison be­tween Fri­day and yes­ter­day, af­ter the SoE came to an end on Jan­u­ary 31.

Green-Jack was not charged af­ter her re­lease.

A de­ten­tion or­der, which was signed on No­vem­ber 12, stat­ed that Green-Jack “made and pub­lished pub­lic posts and/or com­ments on so­cial me­dia ad­dressed to the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment in an at­tempt to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner like­ly to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.”

The or­der added that the post and com­ments in­vit­ed vi­o­lence on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and mem­bers of the pub­lic by Venezuela and/or ex­ter­nal per­sons, which re­vealed “an im­mi­nent threat to pub­lic safe­ty.”

The post, which was made on so­cial me­dia on No­vem­ber 2, was pulled down by Green-Jack af­ter heavy crit­i­cism.

Green-Jack’s so­cial me­dia com­ments came while Venezue­lan and Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in this coun­try were en­gaged in back-and-forth com­ments. Venezue­lan politi­cians were tak­ing is­sue with the Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port of US mil­i­tary ac­tion in the re­gion against al­leged nar­co-traf­fick­ers, which Cara­cas said was a ruse to in­vade Venezuela.

Yes­ter­day, she said she deeply re­gret­ted mak­ing the post.

“What I’d like to say is that I’m very sor­ry for putting her (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) life in dan­ger. It didn’t mean the way it came out. And as I said, if I had known that it was such a dan­ger­ous thing... putting her and her Cab­i­net mem­bers at risk with what was go­ing on with Venezuela and Don­ald Trump, I would not have done it.”

“If I had known that it would have caused that kind of sce­nario, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Green-Jack ad­mit­ted she “didn’t know bet­ter. It was not done in­ten­tion­al­ly at all.”

She promised to stay clear of so­cial me­dia, stat­ing that if she had to make a post again, she would first seek le­gal ad­vice.

“You have to know the le­gal things you can do and what you can­not do.”

Green-Jack al­so ad­vised blog­gers to be care­ful of what they post, stat­ing that “what might be a joke for some­body, it might be putting some­body’s life in dan­ger, like how I did it...so I wouldn’t ad­vise any­body to just say what they feel.”

Smil­ing from ear-to-ear, Green-Jack said, “I am hap­py to be home.”

The moth­er of three de­scribed her time at the Women’s Prison as a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

“I learned a lot. And be­hind bars you have to pray a lot...to keep strong... be­cause is not every­body could go through that. You have to learn to get your­self in or­der. It’s not like you’re in a five-star ho­tel.”

Green-Jack said her biggest chal­lenge in prison was sleep­ing at night.

But she said God was her com­fort and so­lace.