Bo­bie-lee Dixon

It seems no mat­ter how hard Chris Brown tries to move on in life, his past con­tin­ues to haunt him. The 23-year-old singer whose lat­est al­bum, For­tune has sold 303,600 copies world­wide, is mak­ing head­lines again. But this time, not for any run-ins with the law.

Be­cause of Brown's felony as­sault charges and con­vic­tion in the beat­ing of singer and then girl­friend Ri­han­na in 2009, his vis­it to Guyana is be­ing ve­he­ment­ly crit­i­cised by women rights groups in the coun­try where he is ex­pect­ed to per­form in De­cem­ber.

The singer/song­writer is billed to per­form on Box­ing night in the state's cap­i­tal, George­town and the Guyanese gov­ern­ment has al­so come un­der fire as it is al­leged they are part­ly re­spon­si­ble for fi­nanc­ing the con­vict­ed do­mes­tic abuser's vis­it. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the Gov­ern­ment, in a bid to pro­mote tourism is spend­ing a great deal of mon­ey on the singer whose crim­i­nal record for­bids him to per­form in coun­tries like the UK.

The protest­ing groups have voiced their opin­ions on blogs, say­ing that al­low­ing Brown to per­form in the coun­try sends the wrong mes­sage es­pe­cial­ly as the gov­ern­ment does not fi­nance ex­ist­ing pro­grammes in the coun­try geared to­wards fight­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and pro­vid­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion for ex-do­mes­tic abusers.

Oth­ers recog­nise his 'right' to per­form in Guyana but ques­tion the use of tax­pay­er's dol­lars to sup­port his per­for­mance and some ac­tivists have said his vis­it makes a mock­ery of an up­com­ing 16-day Ac­tivism Against Gen­der-based Vi­o­lence cam­paign, es­pe­cial­ly since the con­cert co­in­cides with the oc­ca­sion.

How­ev­er, fans who use the so­cial net­work­ing site Twit­ter have tak­en to Brown's fan page pledg­ing their sup­port to the singer, say­ing he de­serves a sec­ond chance and he has al­ready paid for his mis­take. Brown was sen­tenced by a Los An­ge­les judge to pro­ba­tion of five years and com­mu­ni­ty labour for six months for as­sault­ing Ri­han­na. He was al­so or­dered to stay away from his for­mer for the next five years from the in­ci­dent's date. But Ri­han­na has since for­giv­en Brown and even con­fessed to TV show host Oprah Win­frey in a re­cent in­ter­view that he is the love of her life.

The Bar­ba­di­an songstress said she found the ca­pac­i­ty to for­give Brown for the at­tack through find­ing the means to for­give her own fa­ther for the abuse he sub­ject­ed her moth­er to. The two have even col­lab­o­rat­ed on a few songs in­clud­ing the pop­u­lar Cake.

Re­cent re­ports that the cou­ple are re­unit­ing has prompt­ed mixed re­ac­tions among fans of both celebri­ties.

There have been un­con­firmed re­ports that Brown is al­so card­ed to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore the year's end. Are peo­ple in this coun­try as con­cerned as those in Guyana about al­low­ing him to per­form here giv­en his do­mes­tic vi­o­lence con­vic­tion, or are they ready to for­give and for­get? The T&T Guardian took to the streets of Port-of Spain to get a view from the some younger mem­bers of the pub­lic. Stephen An­drews, Kristoff Alexan­der and Shaki­ma Joseph all 20, and 16-year-old Ce­line Weeks were in­ter­viewed

Three of them said that Brown has done his time for the crime he com­mit­ted and has proven he has changed. They be­lieve he de­serves a sec­ond chance. How­ev­er, Alexan­der who is not a Brown fan said be­cause of the in­ci­dent, Brown should not be cel­e­brat­ed in any­way.

We al­so spoke with Gre­go­ry Sloane-Seale, for­mer child rights ac­tivist with the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence and co-or­di­na­tor of the Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme with­in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, as well as crim­i­nol­o­gist Re­nee Cum­mings. Sloane-Seale said it was not just about giv­ing Brown a sec­ond chance. Ac­cord­ing to him, it is about watch­ing what has tran­spired since the in­ci­dent to date. He said from what he has read about Brown since the Ri­han­na in­ci­dent, the per­former seems to have shown re­morse, at­tend­ed the anger man­age­ment ses­sions or­dered by the court and con­tin­ues to do his com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

"He is a young per­son, his pres­ence can be a voice for hope and change among young peo­ple es­pe­cial­ly young men. You can­not con­demn a per­son for life es­pe­cial­ly a young per­son for his in­frac­tion," Sloane-Seale said. He added that it would have been wise for the Guyanese groups who are protest­ing to cor­re­spond with Brown's man­age­ment be­fore his vis­it and or­gan­ise for him speak about his ex­pe­ri­ence and trans­for­ma­tion dur­ing his vis­it to the coun­try. "It is al­ways sad for me when we throw the ba­by out with the bath wa­ter. No one is prais­ing what he did but his ac­tions were al­ready con­demned, it was a mo­ment that's gone. We have to see how he goes on from here, sup­port him and give him a chance to prove his change."

Re­nee Cum­mings shared Sloane-Seale's views. She said in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence not all per­pe­tra­tors have to con­tin­ue be­ing vi­o­lent. She said the in­ci­dent be­tween Brown and Ri­han­na oc­curred at a time when they were very young, fa­mous, rich and liv­ing on their own with­out guid­ance. For him to be con­tin­u­al­ly la­beled an abuser is wrong Cum­mings rea­soned, as it on­ly oc­curred once and he has since cleaned up his act. She said he has a crim­i­nal record be­cause he was charged but the pub­lic has got to give him a chance to prove him­self.

"In any re­la­tion­ship tem­pers flare - be it teenagers or adults and of­ten we act out on the spur of the mo­ment, re­al­is­ing af­ter it could have been han­dled dif­fer­ent­ly," said Cum­mings."Yes he has a crim­i­nal record but does that mean the minute he lands in Guyana or Trinidad he is go­ing to beat a woman," she rhetor­i­cal­ly asked. Cum­mings said if they can or­gan­ise to have him speak to young men about his ex­pe­ri­ence and how it stig­ma­tizes, that would be a bonus see­ing that some of the ac­tivists' ar­gu­ments are that the Gov­ern­ment does not pro­vide fund­ing to sus­tain the do­mes­tic vi­o­lence pro­grammes need­ed to re­ha­bil­i­tate do­mes­tic abusers. "But to la­bel the man an abuser out of the con­text of one in­ci­dent which has not been re­peat­ed is def­i­nite­ly not the right or fair thing to do."

Lo­cal so­ca artistes al­so shared their views. Swap­pi said every­body has their own opin­ions about Brown but at the end of the day, apart from be­ing an en­ter­tain­er he is a hu­man be­ing. He said Brown has al­ready been for­giv­en by the in­dus­try and has done his time.

His fe­male coun­ter­part Na­dia Bat­son al­so felt peo­ple need­ed to get over what hap­pened and al­low Brown to grow pos­i­tive­ly. While she does not con­done what hap­pened, she feels Brown should not con­tin­ue to be chas­tised for some­thing he al­ready paid for.

"Be­cause of what hap­pened he is viewed as a woman beat­er, but this is not true. Peo­ple make mis­takes-no one is per­fect. I just feel their are many oth­er facets of Chris's life that can be fo­cused on. Peo­ple in this world are just too judg­men­tal." she said.

Young singing sen­sa­tion Er­phaan Alves said Brown's mis­take will haunt him for­ev­er and that is just a fact he is go­ing to have to learn to live with it. He said the on­ly rea­son the is­sue keeps com­ing up is be­cause of his role as an en­ter­tain­er. "Every­body makes mis­takes be it a pres­i­dent, moth­er, fa­ther or a plumber. When you are in the pub­lic's eye it's just more dif­fi­cult for you," said Alves. He con­tin­ued: "He's is not the first artiste to have a crim­i­nal record and cer­tain­ly won't the first artiste to vis­it Trinidad with a record of any kind. Maybe the Guyanese gov­ern­ment should have or­ga­nized things bet­ter know­ing the is­sues sur­round­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in the coun­try, but at the end of the day peo­ple can­not keep hat­ing on Chris."

Megan Wal­rond, vo­cal­ist with the all-fe­male band Sass said she un­der­stood the an­guish of the women's rights groups in Guyana and that it is im­por­tant for the Gov­ern­ment to get fi­nan­cial­ly in­volved in the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the per­pe­tra­tors of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. But she al­so feels the peo­ple can­not make it a per­son­al at­tack on Brown as he al­ready served time for his ac­tions. She said the word of God says we ought to for­give and that is what peo­ple need to do and move on be­cause both Brown and Ri­han­na al­ready have.

Trinidad and To­ba­go's Im­mi­gra­tion laws on peo­ple with con­vic­tions en­ter­ing this coun­try

Ac­cord­ing to Kei­th Samp­son Deputy Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer peo­ple with crim­i­nal records who at­tempt to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go may be re­fused en­try un­der the pro­vi­sions of sec­tions 8(1)d or 8(1)q of Chap­ter 18:01- The Im­mi­gra­tion Act of the Laws of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He said un­der both sec­tions, the first (8(1)d) states that en­try is pro­hib­it­ed to peo­ple who have been con­vict­ed of or ad­mit hav­ing com­mit­ted any crime, which if com­mit­ted in Trinidad and To­ba­go would be pun­ish­able with im­pris­on­ment for one or more years. The lat­ter (8(1)q) states any per­son who from in­for­ma­tion or ad­vice which in the opin­ion of the Min­is­ter is re­li­able in­for­ma­tion or ad­vice is like­ly to be an un­de­sir­able in­hab­i­tant of, or vis­i­tor to Trinidad and To­ba­go.