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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Abdulah not associated with Push Back

... but alarmed at police use of tear gas

by

1152 days ago
20220118
MSJ political leader David Abdulah.

MSJ political leader David Abdulah.

Rishi Ragoonath

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.”


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