Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Cliff Green, the hus­band of Olive Green-Jack, who was de­tained un­der the State of Emer­gency for her so­cial me­dia post call­ing on Venezuela to at­tack the Prime Min­is­ter at her pri­vate res­i­dence in South Trinidad, says his wife is sor­ry.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with the 61-year-old at his fruit stall just off Morne Co­co Road, Diego Mar­tin, yes­ter­day, hours af­ter he vis­it­ed his 44-year-old wife at the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca.

“She just tell me to tell the pub­lic to stay strong, you know, and she apol­o­gised. And you know, hope this thing could be over soon.” Green-Jack’s hus­band said she was de­tained three weeks ago, days af­ter her No­vem­ber 2 post was made on so­cial me­dia. The de­ten­tion or­der was signed on No­vem­ber 12.

He said of­fi­cers came around 3 am one day and took his wife, who he said re­tired from work ear­ly be­cause of kid­ney is­sues she was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

The de­ten­tion or­der stat­ed that Green-Jack “made and pub­lished pub­lic posts and/or com­ments on so­cial me­dia ad­dressed to the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment in an at­tempt to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner like­ly to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.”

The or­der added that the post and com­ments in­vit­ed vi­o­lence on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and mem­bers of the pub­lic by Venezuela and/or ex­ter­nal per­sons, which re­vealed “an im­mi­nent threat to pub­lic safe­ty.”

Green-Jack of Sar­gan­gar Trace, Morne Co­co Road, Diego Mar­tin, will be held at the Women’s Prison un­til Feb­ru­ary 1 next year.

Green-Jack is a moth­er to three sons, the el­dest of whom is in his late twen­ties.

Her so­cial me­dia com­ments came while Venezue­lan and Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in this coun­try were en­gaged in back-and-forth com­ments. Venezue­lan politi­cians were tak­ing is­sue with the Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port of US mil­i­tary ac­tion in the re­gion against al­leged nar­co-traf­fick­ers, which Cara­cas said was a ruse to in­vade Venezuela.

Green said his wife re­moved the Face­book post af­ter con­dem­na­tion on­line and even is­sued an apol­o­gy. How­ev­er, he lament­ed that she was still de­tained.

“Af­ter that, af­ter that hap­pened, they come and de­tain her af­ter that be­cause since it went vi­ral, they come and they hold her and take the phone and every­thing. She didn’t get to do any­thing af­ter that.”

Green said he found the pun­ish­ment for his wife’s be­hav­iour was too harsh. He said there was not much he could do but to sup­port her from the out­side, even though he found the en­tire sit­u­a­tion to be un­fair.

“I don’t think the pun­ish­ment suits the crime be­cause it have re­al peo­ple who make com­ments about them thing al­ready, too. So, to me it ain’t suit it.

“It prob­a­bly was a per­son­al feel­ings with them be­cause, as I say again, it had plen­ty of peo­ple make com­ments about them thing al­ready, you know what I mean? And she makes she com­ments, and they come and de­tain her.”

Green said his wife’s chil­dren and her fam­i­ly are all “tak­ing it one day at a time” when it comes to her de­ten­tion. “The fam­i­ly will be good. We have to take it how we get it, you know, but oth­er than that we’re just tak­ing it one day at a time, un­til the SoE up.”