Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah yes­ter­day con­demned the fir­ing of tear gas on demon­stra­tors dur­ing last Sun­day’s Push Back march at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. He de­scribed the ac­tion as un­nec­es­sary and an abuse of pow­er.

Ab­du­lah al­so ex­pressed con­cern about state­ments made by se­nior of­fi­cers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), in­clud­ing Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob, that the tear gas was used short­ly af­ter pro­test­ers start­ed chant­i­ng “Row­ley Must Go.”

“Mr Ja­cob sur­mised that this chant could have been the pre­cur­sor to some oth­er kind of ac­tions that were ri­otous. This as­ser­tion would be deemed to­tal­ly ab­surd if it was made by a sup­port­er of the rul­ing par­ty, but com­ing from the hi­er­ar­chy of the TTPS, it is down­right dan­ger­ous!” Ab­du­lah said.

“The MSJ po­si­tion is very clear. We sup­port and will de­fend the right of cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise their “free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion, free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and as­sem­bly; free­dom of con­science and the right to ex­press po­lit­i­cal views”—all of which are ex­press­ly es­tab­lished in the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. These are part of the bedrock of a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety.”

An ar­ti­cle in yes­ter­day’s news­pa­per in­ac­cu­rate­ly re­port­ed that Ab­du­lah had been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the protest. How­ev­er, Ab­du­lah was not at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah march and was not an or­gan­is­er of the demon­stra­tion, which end­ed with the ar­rests of 12 per­sons. Umar Ab­dul­lah, an ac­tivist with the First Wave Move­ment, was among those ar­rest­ed and he has since been charged with lead­ing a march with­out the per­mis­sion from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. The eleven oth­ers have been re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Yes­ter­day in a re­lease ad­dress­ing the protest, how­ev­er, Ab­du­lah said the rights of cit­i­zens have been very se­vere­ly re­strict­ed by law, es­pe­cial­ly the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, which orig­i­nat­ed as an old colo­nial law de­signed by the British to keep the work­ing class­es re­pressed and “un­der man­ners”.

He added: “Since In­de­pen­dence, gov­ern­ments have strength­ened pro­vi­sions of this colo­nial law, which amend­ments have fur­ther un­der­mined cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. Free­dom of ex­pres­sion and of as­sem­bly are ex­am­ples of this cur­tail­ment as “per­mis­sion” is re­quired to hold a pub­lic march. Over time the TTPS has al­so wrong­ful­ly in­clud­ed pick­ets and oth­er protests in their de­f­i­n­i­tion of what re­quires “their per­mis­sion.”

“For the TTPS to now take the po­si­tion that cit­i­zens ex­press­ing their po­lit­i­cal views (Row­ley Must Go) is a threat to pub­lic or­der and re­quir­ing the use of tear gas is tak­ing us down the slip­pery slope of a po­lice state where the co­er­cive arm of the state is used to put down—vi­o­lent­ly if they deem it nec­es­sary—any protest against the gov­ern­ment in of­fice. The TTPS must not be used as a weapon against cit­i­zens in the in­ter­est of any gov­ern­ment. We call on the CoP (Ag) to ex­plain his po­si­tion and that of his se­nior of­fi­cers. And we call on the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and oth­er civic bod­ies to is­sue state­ments on this mat­ter. Si­lence is not an op­tion.”