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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Inshan to know outcome of Cro Cro defamation lawsuit on January 31

by

440 days ago
20231208

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­man and so­cial ac­tivist In­shan Ish­mael will have to wait un­til Jan­u­ary 31, next year, to learn the fate of his defama­tion law­suit against four-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins over a con­tro­ver­sial song al­leged­ly di­rect­ed at him (Ish­mael). 

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad re­served his de­ci­sion, which is ex­pect­ed to be de­liv­ered in the mid­dle of the 2024 Car­ni­val sea­son, af­ter pre­sid­ing over the tri­al of the case at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. 

The law­suit re­lates to the song An­oth­er Sat is Out­side Again, which was per­formed by Rawl­ins, this year. 

Rawl­ins al­leged­ly penned the song fol­low­ing a so­cial me­dia furore to­wards Ish­mael based on his com­ments on the cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens af­ter fel­low res­i­dent Ka­reem Mar­celle was called to the bar in No­vem­ber, last year. 

Al­though Rawl­ins did not qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals of this year’s Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, which took place at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta in Skin­ner Park in San Fer­nan­do on Feb­ru­ary 11, Ish­mael claimed that a video of his per­for­mance dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary round of the com­pe­ti­tion at the Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege in Val­sayn was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed. 

While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined by Rawl­ins’ lawyer Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Ish­mael de­nied that he made deroga­to­ry com­ments about Mar­celle. 

Ish­mael said, “I was say­ing we should be cel­e­brat­ing plen­ty and it should be nor­mal. I con­grat­u­lat­ed the gen­tle­man (Mar­celle). It was pos­i­tive crit­i­cism.”

Ish­mael ad­mit­ted that while his ex­act name was not used by Rawl­ins in the com­po­si­tion, a like­ness was used. 

“My rep­u­ta­tion was 100 per cent dam­aged by this song,” he said. 

Ish­mael claimed that he was a fan of ca­lyp­soes as he re­ferred to David Rud­der as his favourite. 

How­ev­er, he ac­cused Rawl­ins of singing racial­ly di­vi­sive songs dur­ing his ca­reer. 

“He has a his­to­ry of songs that den­i­grate a par­tic­u­lar race ... the In­di­an race,” he said.

He ad­mit­ted that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are en­ti­tled to com­ment on pub­lic in­ter­est is­sues. 

“As an ac­tivist, I al­so have a right to com­ment on pub­lic in­ter­est is­sues once it is not defam­a­to­ry,” he said. 

While be­ing quizzed by at­tor­ney An­tho­ny Vieira, who rep­re­sent­ed the Copy­right Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T (COTT) which was list­ed as a de­fen­dant in the law­suit, Ish­mael ad­mit­ted that he did not have any ev­i­dence to chal­lenge the fact that Rawl­ins’ per­for­mance was cov­ered by a blan­ket li­cence grant­ed to the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC). 

He al­so ad­mit­ted that he could not dis­pute that the song was not reg­is­tered with COTT at the time Rawl­ins’ per­for­mance was record­ed or that COTT did not have the pow­er to ed­it or cen­sor its mem­bers’ lyrics.  

In his cross-ex­am­i­na­tion by at­tor­ney Richard Jag­gasar, Rawl­ins claimed that the song was not specif­i­cal­ly di­rect­ed at Ish­mael but was meant to crit­i­cise cit­i­zens who share sim­i­lar views. 

“I am say­ing, why do you have these thoughts and make these ex­cla­ma­tions as a Trinida­di­an,” Rawl­ins said. 

“I was com­par­ing and con­trast­ing the neg­a­tive things peo­ple say,” he added. 

He al­so de­nied that he in­tend­ed for cit­i­zens to boy­cott Ish­mael’s busi­ness­es. 

“I did not say that. I nev­er meant that,” he said. 

Asked whether he analysed Ish­mael’s com­ments in re­la­tion to Mar­celle be­fore pen­ning the song, Rawl­ins said, “The few words I heard were enough for me to write a song. I got the gist of what he was say­ing.”

Rawl­ins claimed that he was not re­spon­si­ble for ra­dio ad­ver­tise­ments for two con­certs, which were aired af­ter Jus­tice Seep­er­sad grant­ed an in­junc­tion block­ing him from per­form­ing seg­ments of the song which Ish­mael con­tend­ed were defam­a­to­ry. 

In his de­fence, Rawl­ins called one wit­ness Zeno Con­stance, a for­mer lec­tur­er in ca­lyp­so his­to­ry with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). 

Con­stance claimed that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are giv­en “lee­way” in terms of defama­tion based on the con­sti­tu­tion­al right of free­dom of speech. 

“Ca­lyp­so is about fa­tigue and pi­cong ... It is meant to tease, heck­le and mock,” he said. 

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that what might have been ac­cept­able in the 1950s would no longer be con­sid­ered so to­day. “The art of pi­cong is dy­ing,” he said. 

Con­stance used the ex­am­ple of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans stay­ing away from lyrics against ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty. 

“It is no longer ac­cept­able to pi­cong. We have be­come more sen­si­tive to peo­ple on the oth­er side,” he said. 

Con­stance ad­mit­ted that the de­cline in pop­u­lar­i­ty of ca­lyp­so tents may be par­tial­ly due to cit­i­zens’ un­will­ing­ness to tol­er­ate di­vi­sive lyrics. 

“The ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty has to work out how to keep the pi­cong alive while not of­fend­ing peo­ple,” he said, as he claimed that the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty had the abil­i­ty to cen­sor its mem­bers as it had done in the past. 

Al­so tes­ti­fy­ing yes­ter­day was COTT chief ex­ec­u­tive Ayan­na Bel­grave-Lewis. 

Bel­grave-Lewis main­tained that her or­gan­i­sa­tion had no pow­er to pre­vent Rawl­ins from per­form­ing the song. 

“I can­not tell a per­former to not per­form their work ... I had no idea it was be­ing per­formed at the event,” she said. 

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad will have to con­sid­er whether the song is defam­a­to­ry to Ish­mael, whether it is cov­ered un­der free speech or if Rawl­ins could re­ly on the defama­tion de­fence of qual­i­fied priv­i­lege, which is af­ford­ed to jour­nal­ists. 

Ish­mael was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Nigel Tran­coso and An­dre Cole, while Kei­th Scot­land ap­peared along­side Pe­ter­son for Rawl­ins.–Derek Achong


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