PM stands firm on no-protest zones

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment will not back down from reg­u­la­tions re­strict­ing ac­cess to 15 no-protest zones across Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­spite threats of le­gal ac­tion from a coali­tion of trade unions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed con­cerns raised by the Pro­gres­sive In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions, an amal­ga­ma­tion of 13 af­fil­i­at­ed unions, ar­gu­ing that the re­stric­tions un­der­mine con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms and lim­it long-es­tab­lished labour rights.

“I sug­gest that the unions should fo­cus on work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment on is­sues that would ac­tu­al­ly ben­e­fit their mem­bers. Every cit­i­zen can protest any­where in the coun­try be­sides these 15 places. The DPP’s of­fice, the two air­ports, the port, De­fence Force head­quar­ters, TTPS head­quar­ters, Min­istry of Fi­nance, Pres­i­dent’s House, etc., are high se­cu­ri­ty ar­eas, so you can’t have large gath­er­ings in front these places that gangs may in­fil­trate. It’s just com­mon sense,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

The reg­u­la­tions, in­tro­duced un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency, pro­hib­it pub­lic protests and demon­stra­tions with­in 500 me­tres of sev­er­al key state in­sti­tu­tions and sen­si­tive fa­cil­i­ties na­tion­wide.

The re­stric­tions were an­nounced short­ly af­ter protests linked to the Joshua Sama­roo-Ka­ia Sealy mat­ter, in­clud­ing a demon­stra­tion out­side the DPP’s of­fice, which re­sult­ed in ar­rests of three peo­ple, among them the or­gan­is­er and friend of Sealy, Alyssa Phillip and her moth­er.

Po­lice lat­er ex­plained that the reg­u­la­tions were en­act­ed “to pro­tect our pub­lic spaces” and “our cit­i­zen­ry at large.”

But the mea­sures have drawn crit­i­cism from sev­er­al quar­ters, in­clud­ing sev­er­al unions, among them the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union (CWU), Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA), Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU), Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA), Bank and In­sur­ance Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (BIG­WU), Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) and the Joint Trade Union Move­ment, to name a few.

At a news con­fer­ence ear­li­er yes­ter­day, TTUTA’s pres­i­dent, Crys­tal Ashe, said the unions would not be si­lenced and were pre­pared to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion if the reg­u­la­tions were not re­vised. He al­so re­vealed that the group had al­ready ob­tained le­gal ad­vice be­fore pub­licly chal­leng­ing the mea­sures.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was un­con­cerned by the prospect of a court chal­lenge.

“Cit­i­zens are free to protest, free to shut down the coun­try or free to turn up to work on any day. In our so­ci­ety, cit­i­zens are al­lowed to pur­sue their in­di­vid­ual choic­es with­in the law. At the end of each month, every in­di­vid­ual has to pay their bills, and there­fore they should make choic­es that best suit them,” she said.

Last week, the Prime Min­is­ter pub­licly con­demned those protest­ing out­side State fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing the DPP’s of­fice.

She said, “Five thou­sand-plus peo­ple have been mur­dered in the past 10 years, but we nev­er see these grifters protest­ing against the gangs and telling the vi­o­lent crim­i­nals, ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’.”

She al­so ac­cused some demon­stra­tors of en­gag­ing in “pub­lic­i­ty farm­ing” and at­tempt­ing to pro­voke po­lice of­fi­cers in or­der to claim vic­tim sta­tus.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so took to so­cial me­dia where she con­demned the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment for what she claimed was its pro­mo­tion of law­less­ness and hos­til­i­ty to­wards law en­force­ment and mob in­tim­i­da­tion.