Gail Alexan­der

Per­sons ar­rest­ed and de­tained un­der the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency in force through­out north, south, east and cen­tral Trinidad for the next 14 days, will not be im­me­di­ate­ly al­lowed bail, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan in­di­cat­ed yes­ter­day. "The war (on crime) is on.....!" Ram­lo­gan de­clared yes­ter­day as he elab­o­rat­ed on the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency which was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar on Sun­day night. "We have de­clared a state of war in T&T against the crim­i­nal el­e­ment and we will not stop un­til we re­cap­ture T&T. The time has come for ac­tion, these are des­per­ate times be­cause we sense and iden­ti­fy with the des­per­a­tion of the pop­u­la­tion-this is why we've tak­en this de­ci­sion to act firm­ly," Ram­lo­gan added.

Ram­lo­gan, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and Chief of De­fence Staff Brigadier Ken­rick Ma­haraj spoke at a me­dia brief­ing at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry in Port- of-Spain on the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency. Down­town Port-of-Spain emp­tied quick­ly yes­ter­day as cit­i­zens at­tempt­ed to get home to points out­side of the cap­i­tal ahead of the cur­few. Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sun­day an­nounced the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency in six crime "hot spot" ar­eas to deal with the crime surge fol­low­ing the re­cent oc­cur­rence of 11 mur­ders in one day. Sandy yes­ter­day sig­nalled that Gov­ern­ment was go­ing af­ter gang mem­bers, cir­cu­la­tion of firearms and drug traf­fick­ers and was bid­ding to get as many weapons as pos­si­ble off the streets. The lim­it­ed state of emer­gency will ap­ply to dis­tricts with­in six ar­eas de­fined by re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion bound­aries.

They are the cities of Port of Spain and San Fer­nan­do, and cor­po­ra­tions of Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas, San Juan/Laven­tille, Diego Mar­tin. A 9 pm to 5 am cur­few which be­gan last Sun­day, will ap­ply in those ar­eas.

Ram­lo­gan said Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards had signed the procla­ma­tion for the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency. Al­though the plan had been de­scribed as a "lim­it­ed" state of emer­gency, the six mu­nic­i­pal ar­eas which it ap­plies to en­com­pass­es most of Trinidad in­clud­ing north, east, south and cen­tral.

To­ba­go was not in­clud­ed in the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency or cur­few. Williams, how­ev­er, said a height­ened polic­ing pres­ence would ap­ply all over T&T 24 hours dai­ly, in­clud­ing ar­eas not in­volved in the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency. Sandy said the law pro­vid­ed for the lim­it­ed sate of emer­gency to be in ef­fect for 15 days in the first in­stance and this would be ap­plied.

He said a four-mem­ber in­ter min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee ap­point­ed by the PM would ex­am­ine what would take place con­cern­ing the up­com­ing In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions. Ram­lo­gan said the pub­lic's con­sti­tu­tion­al rights have not been sus­pend­ed in the sit­u­a­tion. He said Gov­ern­ment was us­ing the same emer­gency reg­u­la­tion pow­ers which had been used dur­ing the 1990 coup at­tempt. Un­der the reg­u­la­tions, Ram­lo­gan said De­fence Force sol­diers as well as po­lice had spe­cial pow­ers of ar­rest and de­ten­tion, as well as the pow­er to search and seize with­out a search war­rant. Ram­lo­gan added, "The scale is now tipped in favour of the law en­force­ment agen­cies to em­pow­er them to fight back."Ram­lo­gan said any cit­i­zen who was ar­rest­ed could be de­tained for 24 hours in the first in­stance.

There­after a mag­is­trate or se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent of po­lice could au­tho­rise a fur­ther pe­ri­od of de­ten­tion not ex­ceed­ing sev­en days in to­tal, he said. Ram­lo­gan said the ques­tion of bail does not arise un­der the de­ten­tion pe­ri­od. If charged with of­fences un­der the emer­gency reg­u­la­tions, a per­son will not get bail ei­ther, he added. Ram­lo­gan said a tri­bunal be­ing put to­geth­er by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie would deal with all griev­ances ex­pe­di­tious­ly. Ram­lo­gan met with Archie on the mat­ter yes­ter­day. Ram­lo­gan said per­sons could be charged un­der the An­ti Gang laws al­so. This would lead to fur­ther de­ten­tion, if nec­es­sary, he added.

Ram­lo­gan urged mem­bers of the pub­lic who had in­for­ma­tion about crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty to re­port it to law en­force­ment. He said the re­sponse so far had been "very very en­cour­ag­ing." Ram­lo­gan said the se­lect­ed six ar­eas were cho­sen by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil based on cer­tain in­tel­li­gence re­ceived by Gov­ern­ment. He said ar­eas like Mal­oney and Tu­na­puna, which were not part of the six dis­tricts, would re­main the fo­cus of height­ened po­lice at­ten­tion al­so. On the pos­si­ble abuse of pow­er by mav­er­ick el­e­ments, Ram­lo­gan said, "Any form of abuse of pow­er by any state of­fi­cial will not be treat­ed light­ly and we there­fore ask that po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers ap­proach this in a re­spon­si­ble, ma­ture man­ner as we have every con­fi­dence they will," Ram­lo­gan said the pop­u­la­tion had been liv­ing with an un­de­clared state of emer­gency and "jailed" be­hind bur­glar proof­ing bars for the past nine years due to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment which was "free on the streets."

Ram­lo­gan not­ed that in 2003, a team head­ed by promi­nent busi­ness­man Ken Gor­don had pro­posed a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency at a time when kid­nap­pings and bomb­ings in Port of Spain had been tak­ing place. Ram­lo­gan not­ed that the-then PNM Gov­ern­ment had re­ject­ed this. Ram­lo­gan said this is the fifth state of emer­gency in T&T. Oth­ers have in­clud­ed dur­ing the 1970s Black Pow­er up­ris­ing and dur­ing the 1990 coup at­tempt. A lim­it­ed state of emer­gency al­so ap­plied in Au­gust 1995 which the past PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion in­voked to re­move for­mer House Speak­er Oc­c­ah Sea­paul.

The or­der

LE­GAL NO­TICE NO. 164

RE­PUB­LIC OF TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO

THE EMER­GENCY POW­ERS REG­U­LA­TIONS, 2011

OR­DER

MADE BY THE COM­MIS­SION­ER OF PO­LICE UN­DER REG­U­LA­TION 4 OF

THE EMER­GENCY POW­ERS REG­U­LA­TIONS, AND BY VIRTUE AND IN

EX­ER­CISE OF ALL OTH­ER POW­ERS EN­ABLING HIM IN THAT BE­HALF

THE EMER­GENCY POW­ERS (CUR­FEW) OR­DER, 2011

1. This Or­der may be cit­ed as the Emer­gency Pow­ers (Cur­few)

Or­der, 2011.

2. This Or­der ap­plies to the ar­eas de­scribed in the Sched­ules and such ar­eas as are de­clared Cur­few Ar­eas for the pur­pose of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2011.

3. Sub­ject to the ex­emp­tion here­inafter pro­vid­ed, no per­son shall

be out of doors in the ar­eas and at the times spec­i­fied in the Sched­ules with­out a per­mit in writ­ing of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or such oth­er per­son or au­thor­i­ty as may be au­tho­rised by him for the pur­pose and any such per­mis­sion may be grant­ed sub­ject to such con­di­tions as may be spec­i­fied there­in.

4. A per­son shall be ex­empt­ed from the re­quire­ment to be in pos­ses­sion of a per­mit, who, on be­ing re­quired so to do by any po­lice of­fi­cer or mem­ber of the De­fence Force in uni­form, pro­duces ev­i­dence that he is-

(a) a po­lice of­fi­cer or mem­ber of the De­fence Force who is on du­ty;

(b) a per­son who is the hold­er of a per­mit as men­tioned in para­graph 3.

5. (1) A per­mit re­ferred to in para­graph 3 may be ob­tained up­on writ­ten ap­pli­ca­tion to the of­fi­cer in charge of a po­lice sta­tion.

(2) An ap­pli­cant for a per­mit re­ferred to in para­graph 3 shall pro­vide to the of­fi­cer in charge of the po­lice sta­tion to whom the ap­pli­ca­tion is made, his name, home ad­dress and, if em­ployed, work ad­dress and tele­phone num­ber or num­bers, if more than one.

FIRST SCHED­ULE

Be­tween 9.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. in the City of Port-of-Spain as de­mar­cat­ed in the First Sched­ule to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act.

SEC­OND SCHED­ULE

Be­tween 9.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. in the city of San Fer­nan­do as de­mar­cat­ed in the First Sched­ule to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act.

THIRD SCHED­ULE

Be­tween 9.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. in the Bor­ough of Ari­ma as de­mar­cat­ed in the First Sched­ule to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act.

FOURTH SCHED­ULE

Be­tween 9.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. in Bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas as de­mar­cat­ed in the First Part of the Sec­ond Sched­ule to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act.

FIFTH SCHED­ULE

Be­tween 9.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. in the Re­gion of Diego Mar­tin as de­mar­cat­ed in the Sec­ond Part of the Sec­ond Sched­ule to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act.

SIXTH SCHED­ULE

Be­tween 9.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. in the Re­gion of San Juan/Laven­tille as de­mar­cat­ed in the Sec­ond Part of the Sec­ond Sched­ule to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act.

Made by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice this 22nd day of Au­gust, 2011.

S. WILLIAMS

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice