An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The moth­er of Alian­na Sama­roo, who was ar­rest­ed one week ago on a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) af­ter is­su­ing pub­lic posts on so­cial me­dia deemed to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty, is ur­gent­ly beg­ging Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to for­give her.

The tear­ful plea for her daugh­ter to be re­turned to the fam­i­ly in time for Christ­mas by He­len Vasquez-Ros­ales was aimed at the very per­son whom Sama­roo had al­leged­ly di­rect­ed on­line threats to one week ago.

Stand­ing on the front porch of her home in Va­len­cia yes­ter­day, Vasquez-Ros­ales re­peat­ed­ly begged Per­sad- Bisses­sar to in­ter­vene in the mat­ter.

Apol­o­gis­ing pro­fuse­ly for what she de­scribed as Alian­na’s “mis­takes,” Vasquez-Ros­ales said she has had no con­tact with her daugh­ter fol­low­ing the ar­rest on No­vem­ber 25.

She begged for in­for­ma­tion on her daugh­ter’s where­abouts, say­ing, “First of all, I want to apol­o­gise to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la on be­half of my daugh­ter Alian­na Sama­roo.

“Well, how she is ... she wrong. She dis­re­spect­ful. She mouth hot and I does had­da be talk­ing to she about that be­cause I end up talk­ing to her and I tell her, I hear some­thing about you on the live and I hope that you not in no trou­ble be­cause that is the Gov­ern­ment of T&T.”

Ad­mit­ting Sama­roo had sub­se­quent­ly de­fend­ed her on­line rants by claim­ing her state­ments were made un­der the am­bit of “free speech,” Vasquez-Ros­ales re­called warn­ing her daugh­ter not to get car­ried away.

Sama­roo, 32, a moth­er of two boys aged sev­en and 11, was de­tained by po­lice last Tues­day at her apart­ment in Ch­agua­nas. This, af­ter po­lice turned up on Vasquez-Ros­ales’ doorstep look­ing for her.

Sama­roo, who is cur­rent­ly un­em­ployed and goes by the on­line han­dle of Pret­ty Alian­na, re­port­ed­ly post­ed sev­er­al videos on her so­cial me­dia ac­count, al­leged­ly invit­ing vi­o­lence on the Prime Min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T by Venezuela.

Be­liev­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar holds the key to Sama­roo’s free­dom, Vasquez-Ros­ales ap­pealed, “I don’t know what hap­pen to my daugh­ter. But I re­al­ly apol­o­gise to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la, if you could for­give she, and she could spend the rest of the time with she chirren be­cause she is fa­ther and moth­er.”

Say­ing Sama­roo’s chil­dren keep ask­ing for her, she con­tin­ued, “I know you is a moth­er of the land. I know you is a moth­er, but if you could please for­give Alian­na, and if you could just let she go, let she be a moth­er and fa­ther to her chil­dren and them.”

Vasquez-Ros­ales is hop­ing Sama­roo’s ar­rest has taught her not to “dis­re­spect the Prime Min­is­ter or any­body in Par­lia­ment.”

“I am very sor­ry from the bot­tom of my heart, with meh whole heart.”

Claim­ing Sama­roo’s on­line posts had come as a sur­prise to her, she said her oth­er three chil­dren were all scared now.

Re­quest­ing an­swers from the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties on Sama­roo’s health and well-be­ing, she said, “We don’t know where she is, we not see­ing any­thing and no­body telling us any­thing.”

She again called for un­der­stand­ing and clear heads to pre­vail, as she added, “She does want to be like them news peo­ple and say­ing all kin­da thing. Please, have a heart for she be­cause she have two chil­dren that need her.”

Asked what ad­vice she would give oth­er peo­ple who be­lieve free speech en­ti­tles them to say what they want on­line with­out con­se­quences, she re­spond­ed, “You can­not dis­re­spect the Prime Min­is­ter. The Prime Min­is­ter is for we, for T&T. Or any of the peo­ple in par­lia­ment, yuh know. You can­not be call­ing up what is UNC and PNM, to dis­re­spect any­body, so any­body who have a thought to do that and dis­re­spect the Prime Min­is­ter is a no-no be­cause the prime min­is­ter is the prime min­is­ter. She have say for every­thing. Thank God it wasn’t worse.”

Asked what had be­come of Sama­roo’s chil­dren and how the fam­i­ly would cope un­til she is re­leased, which could pos­si­bly be in Feb­ru­ary when the State of Emer­gency (SoE) comes to an end, Vasquez-Ros­ales said, “It go just be sad­ness.”

She fought back a fresh wave of tears as she said Sama­roo’s young sons were com­plain­ing they weren’t get­ting kiss­es and hugs from their moth­er.

“Christ­mas won’t be no Christ­mas,” she said, beg­ging once again for her to be re­unit­ed with the fam­i­ly.