Gail Alexan­der

There is no let-up on Gov­ern­ment from De­vant Ma­haraj.

Now the UNC ac­tivist has re­leased Com­mu­ni­ca­tion/Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s cell num­ber and urged peo­ple to call Young.

And he in­tends to re­lease all PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ters’ num­bers, “...Be­cause they have to ac­count to the pub­lic. Peo­ple can’t wait ‘til elec­tion,” Ma­haraj told the Guardian yes­ter­day.

This af­ter Gov­ern­ment blis­tered Ma­haraj with crit­i­cism last Sat­ur­day when he re­leased Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s cell num­ber, caus­ing Row­ley to change it. While Gov­ern­ment has crit­i­cised Ma­haraj’s moves as po­ten­tial­ly sedi­tious, so far the on­ly thing po­lice are ex­am­in­ing is the is­sue of some­one hav­ing ac­cess to the Prime Min­is­ter’s cell num­ber and us­ing it to con­tact him with al­leged threat­en­ing and abu­sive mes­sages.

Last Sat­ur­day Min­is­ter Young, un­der cov­er of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­istry, said Ma­haraj’s pub­li­ca­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter’s per­son­al con­tact in­for­ma­tion was wor­thy of “crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion’. He ac­cused Ma­haraj of con­tin­u­ing to in­cite the peo­ple to use the PM’s in­for­ma­tion to, “at a min­i­mum, ha­rass the Prime Min­is­ter and at a max­i­mum, ex­pose him to harm”. Young claimed Ma­haraj last Sat­ur­day cir­cu­lat­ed calls for protest ac­tion “in a way which is wor­thy of crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and may qual­i­fy as the se­ri­ous crime of sedi­tion”.

Row­ley ac­cused Ma­haraj of pub­lish­ing his num­ber wide­ly on so­cial me­dia and en­cour­ag­ing/in­cit­ing peo­ple ha­rass and threat­en him. Row­ley said he has been the sub­ject not on­ly of abuse but of threat­en­ing be­hav­iour which war­rant­ed the in­volve­ment of the CoP. Row­ley changed the num­ber.

What the Sedi­tion Act says

The Se­di­tion Act, Chap­ter 11:04: Sec­tion 3(1a) states that a se­di­tious in­ten­tion is an in­ten­tion to bring in­to ha­tred or con­tempt or ex­cite dis­af­fec­tion against Gov­ern­ment or Con­sti­tu­tion.

Sec­tion 3(1c) states that a se­di­tion in­ten­tion is an in­ten­tion to raise dis­con­tent or dis­af­fec­tion amongst T&T in­hab­i­tants.

Chap­ter 11:04, Sec­tion 4(1c) states that a per­son is guilty of an of­fence who pub­lish­es, sells, of­fers for sale or dis­trib­utes any se­di­tious pub­li­ca­tion.

A per­son guilty of an of­fence un­der the Sedi­tion sec­tion is li­able to, on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, to a fine of $3,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for two years.

Plan­ning parang protest out­side Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle Fri­day

But a de­fi­ant Ma­haraj said yes­ter­day, “Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley has opt­ed to be dis­con­nect­ed from the suf­fer­ings of the av­er­age cit­i­zen—caused di­rect­ly by mis­man­age­ment of the econ­o­my—by ter­mi­nat­ing his cel­lu­lar phone. Giv­en that Min­is­ter Young ac­cused me of sedi­tion for call­ing for a law­ful protest and shar­ing the PM’s cell num­ber, I now call up­on cit­i­zens to call Min­is­ter Young and speak out against the un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic pat­tern of be­hav­iour of the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion on his phone at (num­ber giv­en).”

Young, al­so Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, said yes­ter­day, “I am ig­nor­ing the Op­po­si­tion and press­ing on with my work for the cit­i­zens of the coun­try.”

Ma­haraj told the Guardian he had not­ed Row­ley’s ref­er­ence to him as “low life” and PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing’s con­dem­na­tion of his ac­tions as “im­be­cil­ic and ob­nox­ious”. She’s chal­lenged UNC Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to say if Per­sad-Biss­esar is in on Ma­haraj’s ac­tions. (See box)

Ma­haraj added, “If Min­is­ter Young be­lieves I breached the law, my at­tor­neys are al­so ad­vis­ing me on whether what the Prime Min­is­ter said about me was defam­a­to­ry. I’d nev­er in­cite any­one to use vi­o­lence or abu­sive lan­guage to the PM or any­one. I on­ly ask peo­ple to call and ex­press their views. I can’t help it if the PNM’s scared of peo­ple now.”

“If the PM’s dis­con­nect­ed his num­ber, Young, who’s the min­is­ter of every­thing, should be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to an­swer the end­less ques­tions peo­ple have for Gov­ern­ment on Petrotrin, San­dals, Galleons Pas­sage, mas­sive job loss from pri­vate to pub­lic sec­tor, prop­er­ty tax, with WASA and T&TEC rate hike be­hind.”

Ma­haraj was con­cerned that “while Gov­ern­ment mem­bers will be hav­ing ‘their ‘Cock­tails At The Cas­tle’ Christ­mas par­ty at Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle on Fri­day, the rest of T&T faces a bleak Christ­mas.”

“I have a tick­et for the cock­tails event, but I’ve or­gan­ised a parang side and for any­one who can’t reach the Gov­ern­ment and wants to ex­press their views, we’re hav­ing a parang protest ‘Car­ols Against Cor­rup­tion’ out­side Stollmey­er’s’ Cas­tle,” Ma­haraj said.

Yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj al­so is­sued a note with a phone num­ber al­leg­ing the PNM had re­leased Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s num­ber. There was no re­ply to that num­ber save a record­ing say­ing to check the num­ber be­ing called.

Asked who in the PNM or what PNM so­cial me­dia site is­sued the num­ber, Ma­haraj said he “hadn’t scru­ti­nised” the ma­te­r­i­al yet.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­ply to her cell or home num­bers.

Re­leas­ing num­ber no crime, but po­lice prob­ing abuse—Gary

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said he couldn't com­ment on the al­leged sedi­tion as­pect of the Ma­haraj is­sue un­til he got more in­for­ma­tion.

But he said the as­pect of Ma­haraj is­su­ing the num­ber wasn't be­ing probed since that wasn't a crim­i­nal is­sue.

Grif­fith said po­lice are, how­ev­er, in­ves­ti­gat­ing the al­leged case of some­one hav­ing ac­cess to the Prime Min­is­ter's num­ber and us­ing it to con­tact the Prime Min­is­ter with abuse which could be con­ceived as threats. He said this could be deemed an of­fence, by virtue of be­ing abu­sive/threat­en­ing mes­sages to the PM.

Grif­fith added, "There's noth­ing that war­rants a po­lice probe if some­one gives out a num­ber to some­one else. How­ev­er as CoP I'd ask peo­ple to con­sid­er when they sub­mit con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion of an­oth­er per­son with­out that per­son's ap­proval. We need to be cog­nisant this may af­fect the safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, and well-be­ing of that per­son."

Is Kam­la in on
this?—PNM PRO

Is UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in sup­port of this “de­spi­ca­ble type of ac­tion” by De­vant Ma­haraj? PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Singh asked yes­ter­day.

“Why is the UNC so silent on the most re­cent ac­tiv­i­ties of its front­line mem­ber De­vant Ma­haraj? The PNM is hor­ri­fied and dis­gust­ed by the re­pul­sive, reck­less be­hav­iour con­tin­u­ous­ly ex­hib­it­ed by Ma­haraj.

“His most re­cent in­sid­i­ous ac­tion in which he pub­lished and wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed the tele­phone num­ber of the coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter, com­pound­ed by his pa­thet­ic pub­lic call to in­ten­tion­al­ly ha­rass and ef­fec­tive­ly tor­ment the de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed leader of our coun­try serves on­ly to prove his im­be­cil­ic and ob­nox­ious lev­els of think­ing, and his ma­li­cious in­tent to at­tempt to desta­bilise the coun­try.

“De­vant Ma­haraj con­tin­ues to be un­pa­tri­ot­ic and ill-dis­ci­plined, both in and out of of­fice...it’s ex­pect­ed that he would have the de­cen­cy and ba­sic com­mon sense to un­der­stand that one can­not in­cite cit­i­zens to threat­en the Prime Min­is­ter or any oth­er cit­i­zen for that mat­ter. How­ev­er, for some­one who has built a rep­u­ta­tion of con­tin­u­ous­ly at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine our mul­ti-eth­nic so­cial fab­ric, this proves to be yet an­oth­er plunge in­to the abyss of ir­rel­e­vance for him.

“The PNM calls up­on the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to sound­ly re­ject the ac­tions and ef­forts of Ma­haraj.”

PNM’s Women’s League chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is al­so slammed Ma­haraj.

It’s en­cour­ag­ing the UNC to cause dis­rup­tion to the sys­tem of gov­ern­ment—Al-Rawi

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said the mat­ter “...isn’t an is­sue of pri­va­cy of the Prime Min­is­ter or not want­i­ng to be avail­able. He’s been in the pub­lic do­main with this num­ber for many years. It’s the ir­re­spon­si­ble act and en­cour­age­ment of the UNC to cause dis­rup­tion to the sys­tem of gov­ern­ment which is the is­sue.

“The Prime Min­is­ter as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is def­i­nite­ly not the cor­rect au­thor­i­ty to be in­un­dat­ed with prank calls on a con­stant ba­sis when he has to be avail­able to gov­ern­ment agen­cies that re­quire his at­ten­tion. Any prime min­is­ter ought not to be sub­ject to any form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion or cy­ber at­tack as this is de­signed to crash the sys­tem.”

Al-Rawi’s num­ber was pub­li­cised by UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal on an is­sue dur­ing the 2016 Bud­get de­bate.