The T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) has writ­ten to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) di­rec­tor Gillian Lucky and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs ask­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ex­pla­na­tion of Thurs­day's raid at News­day's of­fices. A team of po­lice of­fi­cers went to the me­dia house on Cha­con Street to search for doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to an ar­ti­cle on the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. They seized flash dri­ves and lap­tops be­long­ing to re­porter An­dre Ba­goo who wrote an ar­ti­cle about the Com­mis­sion.

TTP­BA pres­i­dent Ki­ran Ma­haraj said free­dom of the press is en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion and when such in­ci­dents oc­cur it ap­pears to be an at­tack on and a threat to democ­ra­cy. She wrote to Lucky and Gibbs yes­ter­day about the raid at News­day, as well as one at CCN TV6 in De­cem­ber. Ma­haraj said the man­ner in which the raids were con­duct­ed were in­con­sis­tent with nor­mal po­lice pro­ce­dure for serv­ing a war­rant, es­pe­cial­ly at a me­dia house. In a sep­a­rate state­ment, the TTP­BA said it was un­clear what the grounds were for such a show of po­lice force.

"While the TTP­BA does not seek to in­ter­fere with the course of jus­tice, the man­ner in which these raids have been con­duct­ed may be in­ter­pret­ed as acts of in­tim­i­da­tion. "The role of our me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers is to in­form our pub­lic. When such raids are con­duct­ed it sends a neg­a­tive mes­sage that the po­lice are try­ing to muz­zle the me­dia."